KARACHI: In the first half of this fiscal year, overseas Pakistanis has remitted $8.981 billion, a growth of 15.2 per cent compared to $7.792bn in the year-ago period, the State Bank said.
The country is among the top recipients of remittances while the inflow has been increasing each year despite acts of terrorism and political upheavals in the country.
Remittances in December, at $1.583bn, were 20 per cent higher than November and 14.3 per cent higher than December 2013.
The higher remittances will help the country to build its reserves as the oil price plunge in the international market has created room for reduction in oil import bill.
However, the trade deficit has been increasing steeply, widening by 33.97 per cent to $12.3bn during the first half of FY15 from $9.054bn during the same period of FY14.
The rising trade deficit limits the impact of high remittances and could also compromise the potential of growth.
The details of the SBP report showed that remittances increased from almost all the traditional sources, but dropped by 9.3pc to $196 million from the 28-nation European Union.
The highest amount was received from Saudi Arabia as remittances from the country rose 20pc to $2.649bn from $2.203bn during the same period last year.
In terms of percentage, the highest increase was noted from the UAE as the amount increased by 25.5 per cent to $1.974bn compared to $1.572bn.
The remittances increased by 4pc to $1.306bn from the United States, by 2pc to $1.169bn from the UK, and by 15.6pc to $1.037bn from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar apart from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
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