Remittances increase 34% year-on-year to near $2.5 billion in May

Remittances from overseas workers increased 34% year-on-year, amounting to $2.49 billion in May 2021, said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday.

The country's central bank added that the dip usually experienced post-Eid holidays was also smaller this year. Pakistan received remittances amounting to $1.87 billion during May 2020.

Overall, remittances from overseas workers stood at $26.7 billion during 11 months of the ongoing fiscal year, up 29.4% from a year ago and higher than the entire FY2020 level by $3.6 billion.

Details revealed that a large part of workers’ remittance inflow during Jul-May FY21 came from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US).

Inflows from Saudi Arabia increased by 19.5%, amounting to $7.01 billion in July-May of FY21, compared to $5.865 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year. During the period under review, remittances from the US and UK increased by 58.1% and 66.6%, respectively. Pakistan received remittances amounting to $2.48 billion from the US and $3.696 billion from the UK during the first eleven months of this fiscal year.

On a month-on-month basis, country-wise details for May 2021 show that inflows from Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, GCC countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries amounted to $614.1 million, $512.4 million, $260.9 million, $365.0 million, $261.5 million and $243.6 million, respectively.

Remittances received from Malaysia, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Japan and other countries during May 2021 amounted to $233.1 million together.