Inflow of workers' remittances posted a slight increase of 2.5 percent during the first half (July-Dec) of this fiscal year (FY18). Overseas Pakistani workers remitted $9.745 billion in the first six months of FY18, compared with $9.505 billion received during the same period in the preceding year (FY17), depicting an increase of $240 million.
Among three major corridors of home remittances, inflows of home remittances from Saudi Arabia registered over 7 percent decline, while inflows from US and UK surged by 9.24 percent and 23 percent, respectively. During the period under review, overseas Pakistani workers remitted $2.53 billion from Saudi Arabia, $1.28 billion from US and $1.35 billion from UK. Workers' remittances from UAE fell by 1.65 percent to $2.16 billion in the first half of this fiscal year compared to $2.13 billion in the same period of last fiscal year. Inflows from the EU countries stood at $314 million, up 20 percent.
During December 2017, the inflows of workers' remittances amounted to $1.724 billion, which are 9.31 percent higher than November 2017 and 8.72 percent higher than December 2016. The country-wise details for December 2017 show that inflows from Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, GCC countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries amounted to $431.97 million, $396.74 million, $234.76 million, $223.3 million, $188.76 million and $54.87 million, respectively compared with the inflow of $475.75 million, $339.95 million, $182.19 million, $181.85 million, $203.63 million and $35.09 million, respectively in December 2016.
Remittances received from Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Japan and other countries during December 2017 amounted to $193.17 million together against $166.91 million received in December 2016.