KARACHI: The repatriation of profit and dividend by foreign investors continued to post negative growth and plunged by 82 percent during the first nine months of this fiscal year.
According to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), repatriation of profit and dividend by foreign investors stood at $233.1 million in July-March of FY23 compared to $1.267 billion in the same period of last fiscal year (FY22), showing a decline of 82 percent or $ 1.035 billion.
Analysts said the earnings of foreign investors have drastically reduced due to economic slowdown and accordingly, massive decline has witnessed in the repatriation of profit and dividend. The SBP further revealed that repatriation of profit and dividend from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) declined by 83 percent and 66 percent respectively.
Foreign investors repatriated $194.5 million as return on FDI during July-March of FY23 compared to $ 1.152 billion in the same period of last fiscal year, depicting a decline of $958 million.
Repatriation of profit from FPI also fell from $ 115.3 million to $ 38.6 million in the first nine months of this fiscal year.
The highest outflow of profit and dividends amounting to $87.5 million was sent from the Oil and Gas Explorations, $34 million from power, $33.1 million from the mining sector, and $18.5 million from the financial sector. Economists said that currently, production of large scale manufacturing industries including automobiles, food, textile, petroleum oil and pharmaceutical is also on decline as the policy rate is at the highest level of 21 percent.
Industries are also facing difficulties in import of raw material due to shortage of foreign exchange. Leading auto plants have shut down their production due to shortage of raw material as the government is facing foreign exchange crisis, they added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023