ADB forecasts remittances to slow as GCC countries struggle at home

Asian Development Bank forecast  that remittance to slow down as less movement of workers to the Asian countries as the Gulf and Saudi Arabia have curtailed their investment plans owing to fall in crude oil prices.

The Asian Development Bank has released a report and said that size of remittances from the Asian countries across the world has been 45 percent. Since the price has moved down, the remittances flow in 2016 was around 259 billion dollars down from 269 billion dollars in 2015.

The trend to continue in 2017 as the crude oil price has been averaging below 50 dollars a barrel. Moreover, the Gulf countries have either halted some of the mega projects or curtailed the construction activities which resulted in reducing the demand of the labors.

Pakistan has been also the victim of reduction of inflows and there has been possibility that remittance from Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia to scale down.