Remittance grow by 8.2pc in five years

The remittances sent by the Overseas Pakistanis working abroad during the last five years witnessed an aggregate annual growth of 8.2 percent during the last five years (2013-2017), officials sources said.

The remittances during 2012-13 increased by 5.6 percent to $13.921 billion while in 2013-14, the remittances were recorded at $15.838 million, showing growth of 13.8 percent.

Similarly, the sources added that during 2014.15, the remittances witnessed growth of 18.2 percent to $18.720 billion, according to official data.

The data further revealed that during 2015-16, the remittance touched $19.915 figure by posting growth of 6.4 percent, however during the fiscal year 2016-17, the remittances witnessed negative growth of 2.8 percent by falling to $19.351 billion.

As evident from the data, the highest growth of 18.2 percent was witnessed in year 2014-15 followed by 13.8 percent in 2013-14; 6.4percent  in 2015-16 and 5.6 percent in 2012-13 while the lowest growth of -2.8 percent was witnessed during last fiscal year (2016-17), the data revealed.

Meanwhile, the overseas Pakistanis sent remittances amounting to $9.7 billion in the first half of 2017-18, showing growth of 2.5 per cent from the same period of the previous fiscal year, according to State Bank of Pakistan. Remittances from all important destinations, except Saudi Arabia, showed a positive growth.

During December 2017, the inflow of worker’s remittances amounted to US $1723.57 million, which is 9.31% higher than November 2017 and 8.72% higher than December 2016, according to SBP data.