Pakistan posts current account surplus in Sept on stronger remittances

KARACHI: Pakistan’s current account turned into a surplus in September 2025, supported by higher inflows of workers’ remittances, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

According to the vSBP, the country recorded a current account surplus of USD 110 million in September 2025, reversing a USD 325 million deficit in August 2025.This marks the first monthly surplus of FY26 after two consecutive months of deficits.

Earlier, the current account had earlier recorded a USD 254 million deficit in July 2025 and another deficit in August 2025.

Year-on-year, the current account also reflected a marked improvement, shifting to a surplus in September 2025 from a USD 52 million deficit in September 2024.

Analysts said that remittance inflows remained robust, reaching USD 3.18 billion, up 11 percent year-on-year, providing key support to the external account and helping narrow the gap in the overall balance of payments.

On a quarterly basis, the current account deficit increased 18 percent to USD 594 million in July–September FY26, compared with USD 502 million in the same period last year.

SBP expecting some surge in the imports in FY26 due to the expansion in economic activity and expected shortages of agricultural commodities. On the other hand, the slowdown in global demand and damages to agriculture produce are expected to weigh on exports.

However, SBP said that lower US tariff on Pakistan’s exports relative to the competitors may partly offset the fallout of floods and adverse global developments. Further, the workers’ remittances are maintaining the momentum and likely to partly offset the deterioration in trade deficit. Incorporating these trends, recently SBP has projected that current account deficit is likely to be in the range of 0-1.0percent of GDP in FY26 as against arecord surplus of USD 2.1 billion in FY25.

The country’s total goods exports were amounted to USD 7.9 billion in September 2025, up from USD 7.42 billion in the same month of the last fiscal year.

Meanwhile, total imports increased by 8 percent to clocked in at USD15.43 billion during September 2025 compared to USD 14.255 billion in September 2024.

This significant improvement in the current account balance during the last fiscal year is attributed to the strong growth in workers’ remittances, which more than offset the deficits in trade and primary income accounts. The increase in remittances was driven by various initiatives implemented by the government and the SBP, which also resulted in lower kerb premium.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025