KARACHI: Inflows of workers’ remittances maintained a declining trend and fell 9.77 percent during the first five months of this fiscal year (FY23).

According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), workers’ remittances recorded an inflow of $12 billion during July-Nov of FY23 compared to $13.3 billion in the same period of last fiscal year (FY22), depicting a decline of $1.3 billion.

Home remittances maintained over $2 billion monthly inflows in November 2022. These inflows are lowest since Aug 2020. Leading corridors including Saudi Arabia, UAE and UK witnessed downward trend during the first five months of this fiscal year. Inflows from Saudi Arabia fell by 13 percent to $ 2.957 billion during July-Nov of FY23. Despite the decline in inflows, Saudi Arabia is the largest contributor in overall inflows with 25 percent share.

During the period under review, home remittances from UAE amounted to $2.26 billion, falling 11 percent. In addition, remittances from the UK fell by 8 percent to $1.66 billion in the first five months of FY23.

Month-on-month basis, remittances sent by overseas Pakistanis decreased by 4.8 percent during Nov 2022, and by 14.3 percent on YoY basis.

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The country fetched home remittances inflows amounted to $ 2.1 billion in November 2022 as against $ 2.5 billion in November 2021. Inflows of workers’ remittances, in November 2022, also declined by $107 million compared to October 2022, in which $2.216 billion remittances arrived.

Remittance inflows during Nov 2022 were mainly sourced from Saudi Arabia worth $498 million, United Arab Emirates (UAE) $377.8 million, United Kingdom (UK) $299.1 million and United States of America (USA) worth $229.4 million.

The country is facing a serious crisis of foreign inflows of healthy home remittances to build the sliding reserves of the country. The SBP’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $6.7 billion at the end of last week.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022