KARACHI: The Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Dr Reza Baqir, expressed his gratitude to the Pakistani diaspora in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for their tremendous support of the State Bank’s Roshan Digital Account initiative, a joint press release by State Bank of Pakistan and the Embassy of Pakistan in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said today.
Governor stated that Roshan Digital Account (RDA) has proved to be a great success among the Pakistani community in KSA, who have opened the highest number of RDA accounts and sent the second-highest amount of deposits among the 175 countries from which Overseas Pakistanis have participated in RDA. He was speaking at an interactive session entitled ‘Roshan Digital Account – an initiative of State Bank of Pakistan’ organized by the Embassy of Pakistan in Riyadh on February 6, 2022. The event was attended by a large number of Pakistanis residing in the Kingdom, various KSA based Pakistani associations, senior State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) management, and officials from the Embassy of Pakistan.
In his keynote address, Governor Dr Reza Baqir expressed his gratitude to the Ambassador of Pakistan in KSA, His Excellency Lt. Gen (Rtd) Bilal Akbar, for organizing the event to discuss the Roshan Digital Account (RDA) initiative. This landmark initiative provides an opportunity for Overseas Pakistanis to open a bank account and meet their saving and investment needs in Pakistan through a fully digital process. He informed the audience that since the launch of the scheme last September, 345,570 Roshan Digital Accounts have been opened by Overseas Pakistanis and $3.44 billion has been deposited into these accounts.
Dr. Baqir also shared the key highlights of the country’s economy with the audience. He specifically highlighted three points that should give confidence to Overseas Pakistanis about Pakistan’s economic outlook: first, the successful containment of multiple waves of the Covid pandemic; second, the preservation of Pakistan’s macroeconomic fundamentals through the Covid shock, including a reduction in the public debt to GDP ratio and a more than doubling of the country’s foreign exchange reserves; and, third, the proactive and coordinated policy response of the government and the SBP to provide support to the economy during Covid.
