KARACHI: The remittances sent by the overseas Pakistani workers posted 24 percent growth during the first seven months of the current fiscal year as the inflows of remittances exceeded over $2 billion for eight consecutive months, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Monday.
The overseas Pakistani workers have sent $16.47 billion during July – January of fiscal year 2020/2021 as compared with $13.28 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.
The SBP said that workers’ remittances had exceeded $2 billion for the eighth consecutive months in January 2021.
The inflows of workers remittances posted growth of 19.50 percent to $2.27 billion in January 2021 as compared with $1.9 billion in the same month of the last year. However, remittances were lower from the December 2020 level of $2.4 billion.
A large part of workers’ remittances during July-January 2020/2021 was sourced from Saudi Arabia ($4.5 billion), United Arab Emirates ($3.4 billion), United Kingdom ($2.2 billion) and United States ($1.4 billion).
This sustained increase in workers’ remittances largely reflects growing use of banking channels that is attributed to continuous efforts by the government and SBP to attract inflows through official channels, limited cross border travel amid the second wave of COVID-19 and flexible exchange rate regime.
