KARACHI: Pakistan’s current account recorded a 10-year high monthly surplus of $729 million in November 2024, driven by higher remittances and an improved trade balance.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) reported on Tuesday that the country’s external account showed significant improvement, with the current account posted a surplus of $729 million in November 2024, compared to a deficit of $148 million in the same month last year (November 2023).
This positive trend highlights the combined impact of increased inflows from overseas workers and exports.
Pakistan records $349mn current account surplus in October 2024
Analysts said Pakistan recorded the highest monthly surplus in Nov 2024 in the last 10 years. Nov 2024 was the fourth consecutive month of surplus due to higher remittances and improved trade statistic.
Previously, the country’s current account posted a surplus of $346 million in Oct 2024.
Cumulatively, the current account balance posted a $944 million surplus in July-Nov of FY25 compared to a deficit of $1.676 billion in the same period of last fiscal year (FY24).
During the period under review, exports grew by 7.4 percent to $13.283 billion, mainly driven by textile, rice and other exports. At the same time, favorable global commodity prices helped contain the import bill despite a sizeable increase in import volumes.
Import bill rose by 8.3 percent to $23 billion in the first five months of this fiscal year.
Analysts said robust workers’ remittances and strong export performance have largely contributed to the surplus current account during this fiscal year. Inflows of home remittances witnessed a significant 34 percent increase to reach $14.766 billion during the first five months of the current fiscal year (FY25), driven by narrowing gap between interbank and open market exchange rates and enabling policies.
According to the SBP, the surplus in the current account, along with the improved foreign investment inflows, helped build up SBP’s FX reserves up to $12 billion mark, despite weak official inflows.
Going forward, the SBP projected that sustained uptrend in workers’ remittances and exports, along with favorable international commodity prices, are expected to keep the current account deficit near the lower bound of the projected 0-1 percent of GDP range in FY25. The lower current account deficit will also enable the SBP’s foreign exchange reserves to exceed $13 billion by June 2025.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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