LAHORE: The inflow of foreign remittances to Pakistan by the overseas Pakistanis has witnessed a significant increase of thirty-four percent during the first five months of the current fiscal year.
According to Bloomberg, the boost in the remittances is the result of Pakistani authorities’ crackdown on illegal dollar trade.
Referring the State Bank of Pakistan date, it further said that cash sent home by those living offshore rose thirty four percent to 14.8 billion dollars in the five months of the financial year.
Commenting on this significant achievement, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said the remittances may rise to a record this year.
He said the remittances expected to reach an all-time high of 35 billion dollars this year from 30 billion dollars last year.
In his comments, an emerging-market economist at BMI, a Fitch Solutions company in London, John Ashbourne said the currency reforms do seem to have boosted remittances
He said this increase might be because remittances that had previously been sent using the black market are now being sent via official channels.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided offices of money changers, arrested people and also deployed security officials in plain clothes at money exchanges in its efforts that started over a year ago.
The General Secretary of the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan Zafar Paracha, in his remarks, said all kinds of negative currency trading have significantly declined.
He estimated that size of the illegal dollar-trading market has fallen at least twenty percent in the past two years, with as much as 10 billion dollars going into formal banking channels.
Sana Tawfik, the Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited said the crackdown on illegal trades helped the country get major Forex reserves support in the shape of remittances and that helps currency stability.
