Profit and dividend: foreign investors repatriate $204 million in July-August

Foreign investors repatriated some $204 million on account of profit and dividend during the first two months of this fiscal year. Economist said improved financial results of the corporate sector have resulted in the higher repatriation of profit and dividend by foreign investors. According to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), repatriation of profit and dividend by the foreign investors continues to post healthy growth increasing by 74 percent during July-August of fiscal year 2016-17 (FY17).
Foreign investors repatriated some $204.3 million on account of profit and dividend during first two months of this fiscal year against $117.3 million in the same period of last fiscal year, depicting an increase of $87 million. The repatriated amount is even much higher than Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), arrived during the period under review. The country fetched FDI amounting to $112.6 million in July-August of FY17 against the repatriated amount of $204 million.
Major outflow of profit and dividend have been witnessed from FDI and cumulatively some 88 percent of the repatriated amount has been sent as returns on FDI. During the period under review, repatriation from FDI increased by 95 percent. Foreign investors transferred some $179 million on account of return on FDI during first two months of FY17 compared to $92 million in the corresponding period of last fiscal year (FY16), showing an increase of $87.2 million.
Repatriation of profit and dividend from portfolio is almost equal to the last year. Foreign investors repatriated an amount of $25.4 million in July-August of FY17 against $25.5 million in the corresponding period of FY16. The detailed analysis revealed that the highest repatriation of profit and dividend has been witnessed from petroleum refining as an amount of $68.6 million was sent in July-August FY17. Some $26 million has been repatriated from power sector, $23 million from chemical sector, $13.8 million from financial sector and some $18.2 million on account of transport equipments. Month-on-month basis, some $58.5 million have been repatriated in August 2016, of which $53.8 million were as return on FDI and $4.7 as return on foreign portfolio investment. With an increase of 17 percent, foreign investors had repatriated some $2 billion on account of profit and dividend during FY16 against $1.637 billion in FY15.