The home remittance numbers for December 2015 are out and there is not much you can read from a month's number. Home remittances at $1.6 for December 2015 stayed flat year-on-year, taking the cumulative six month figure growth down a bit. The 1HFY16 remittance year-on-year growth has come down to a much modest 6.2 percent - from the highs of 18 percent in the same period last year.
The contribution composition does not seem to have changed much either in the six months so far, with Saudi Arabia leading the way followed by the UAE. The continuous sharp decline in international oil prices have sent many thinking about the future of remittances for Pakistan, and rightly so. The impact may have not come yet and the slowdown in growth may just be a beginning of things to come.
A study into impact of oil prices in remittances by an IMF working group noticed that it is the non-oil GDP which is more decisive in having an impact on remittances. And the impact on remittances in period of high oil price volatility has been rather well managed and marginal. The current oil price decline is not for the first time, so there should not be over analysis of the situation.
Having said that, Saudi economic numbers are not too heartening. The non-oil GDP growth has been in the red for three straight quarters and the slowdown in oil is surely having its repercussions on non-oil growth. The Saudi non-oil real GDP is estimated to be slashed to half this fiscal year, as the previously resilient construction and wholesale sectors start showing signs of weaknesses and the fiscal deficit balloons to new highs.
With non GCC countries having just under one-third of the share in the pie that has not been growing exponentially, the reliance on Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries increases ever so much. Historical trends suggest that a 1 percent decline in real non-oil GDP of GCC countries is estimated to reduce the remittance outflows by 0.75 percent. And the reading on non-oil GDP is not encouraging thus far. Keep an eye on where oil drives the non-oil economy.
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