KARACHI: Remittances from overseas Pakistani remained over two billion dollars for the fourth consecutive month, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Monday, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) contributing the highest inflows.
“Despite COVID more good news for our economy,” Khan said on Twitter. “Remittances from our hardworking overseas Pakistanis rose to $2.3 bn in Sept 2020, 31% higher than last Sept & 9% higher than August 2020. This marks the 4th consecutive month that remittances have remained above $2 bn.”
On a cumulative basis, remittances rose to a record $ 7.1 billion in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, or 31.1 percent higher than the corresponding period last year.
“The level of remittances in September was slightly higher than State Bank of Pakistan’s projections of $2 billion,” the central bank said in a statement. “Efforts under the Pakistan Remittances Initiative (PRI) and the gradual re-opening of major host destinations such as Middle East, Europe and United States contributed to the sustained increase in workers’ remittances.”
Remittance inflows from the Saudi Arabia during September 2020 increased to $665.82 million, as compared to $515.75 million in September 2019. The contribution of Saudi Arabia during the first three months of the current fiscal year stood at $2 billion and from the UAE at $1.42 billion.
Since June 2020, Pakistan has received above $2 billion remittances every month despite global economic constraints caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Financial experts say part of the reason is that remittances that routinely came through unofficial channels were now coming in through official channels due to limited travel and were thus being properly recorded.
“The reason for this growth is that mostly remittance that would come through unofficial channels are now coming through official channels,” said Khurram Schehzad, CEO at the Karachi-based advisory, Alpha Beta Core Solutions.
