July-January remittances exceed $13 billion

Inflows of home remittances crossed $13 billion mark during first seven months of this fiscal year (FY20). The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Wednesday reported that overseas Pakistani workers remitted $ 13.302 billion during July to January of FY20 compared with $ 12.774 billion during the same period last year (FY19), showing a growth or 4.13 percent or $ 528 million.

With 23 percent share in overall home remittances, Saudi Arabia is still the largest contributor to the home remittances inflows. Some $ 3.051 billion inflows of home remittances were received from Saudi Arabia in first seven months of this fiscal year as against $ 2.97 billion in corresponding period of last fiscal year.

The detailed analysis revealed that inflows from two other major corridors of home remittances i.e. USA and UK also witnessed upward trend. During the period under review, workers' remittances from USA increased by 11 percent to $ 2.22 billion.

Similarly, inflows of home remittances from UK surged by 5.66 percent to $ 2.052 billion during Jul-Jan of this fiscal year. Month-on-month basis, during Jan 2020, the inflow of worker's remittances were amounted to $ 1.907 billion, which were some 9 percent less than December 2019 and 9.34 percent higher than January 2019, in which some $1.744 billion inflows were arrived.

The country-wise details for the month of January 2020 show that inflows from Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, GCC countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries were amounted to $ 433.39 million, $ 395.48 million, $ 355.06 million, $ 299.07 million, $ 186 million and $ 47.22 million respectively compared with the inflow of $404 million, $ 350 million, $ 272.49 million, $ 295 million, $166 million and $ 41 million respectively in January 2019.