Record $21.84 billion home remittances received in FY19

Pakistan has received record $21.84 billion inflows of home remittances during the last fiscal year (FY19) supported by higher inflows from US, UK and Saudi Arabia. According to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), overseas Pakistani workers remitted $21.842 billion during July-June of FY19 compared with $19.912 billion during the same period in the preceding year (FY18), showing a growth of 10 percent or $1.92 billion.
Economists said that Pakistan is facing a balance of payment crisis for the last one year and needs massive foreign inflows to finance the current account deficit. Increasing home remittance inflows have also helped to reduce pressure on external account during the ongoing year, they added. The massive decline in the country's total liquid foreign exchange reserves has already forced the country for another International Monetary Fund (IMF) program amounted to $6 billion and Pakistan on Wednesday received the first tranche of one billion dollar of this 39-months Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program to ease pressure on external account.
The detailed analysis revealed that inflows from all three major corridors i.e. USA, UK and Saudi Arabia recorded upward trend. Workers' remittances from Saudi Arabia surged by 3 percent to $5 billion in July-June of FY19 compared to $4.858 billion in the same period of last fiscal year. Despite lower growth compared to USA and UK, with 23 percent share Saudi Arabia is still the largest contributor in the home remittances inflows.
Similarly, inflows from USA posted a 20 percent growth and some $3.409 billion home remittances arrived in FY19 as against $2.838 billion in FY18. During the period under review, home remittances from UK increased by 18 percent to $ 3.41 billion.
During June 2019, the inflows of workers' remittances were amounted to $1.651 billion, which is 29 percent lower than May 2019, in which the country received $2.315 billion remittances. However, remittances arrived in June 2019 were 1.40 percent higher than June 2018.
The country wise details for the month of June 2019 showed that inflows from Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, GCC countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries were amounted to $334 million, $356.03 million, $276.76 million, $268.97 million, $163.46million and $52.49 million respectively compared with the inflow of $336.61 million, $345.31 million, $260.32 million, $260.25 million, $163.53 million and $62.16 million respectively in June 2018. Remittances received from Malaysia, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Japan and other countries during June 2019 amounted to $198.81 million together as against $199.47 million received in June 2018.