July 13, 2021 (MLN): Workers' remittances rose to a historic annual high of $29.4 billion in FY21. This has helped improve the country’s external sector position despite the challenging global economic conditions in the past year.
Making an announcement on its Twitter handle, the State bank of Pakistan (SBP) said thatRemittances registered a substantial 27% growth in FY21 over last year, the fastest rate of expansion since FY03.
Meanwhile, remittance inflows during FY21 were mainly sourced from Saudi Arabia ($7.67 billion), United Arab Emirates ($6.1 billion), United Kingdom ($4 billion), other GCC Countries ($3.3 billion), and the United States ($2.75 billion), up by 16%, 9%, 58%, 14%, and 58% YoY respectively.
According to the data released by SBP, remittances sent by Overseas Pakistani during the month of June’21 jumped by 8% MoM and 9% YoY as the seasonal Pre-Eid related inflows helped to boost the remittance level to $2.68 billion, mainly sourced from Saudi Arabia ($670 million), United Arab Emirates ($543.8 million), United Kingdom ($375.8 million) and the United States ($275.1 million).
Overall, the record high inflows of workers’ remittances during FY21 were driven by proactive policy measures by the Government and SBP to incentivize the use of formal channels, curtailed cross-border travel in the face of COVID-19 infections, altruistic transfers to Pakistan amid the pandemic, and orderly foreign exchange market conditions.
