Pakistan’s remittances decrease 9.9 pct in January: Central bank

ISLAMABAD: Remittances sent by overseas Pakistani workers decreased 9.9 per cent in January on a month-on-month basis, the State Bank of Pakistan said.

The workers' remittances recorded an inflow of 1.894 billion US dollars in January, as compared to the previous month's figure of 2.102 billion dollars, and marked a decrease of 13.1 percent year-on-year, showed the bank's newly released data on Monday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

With a cumulative inflow of 16 billion dollars during the first seven months of the ongoing 2022-2023 fiscal year (from July 2022 to June 2023), the remittances decreased by 11 per cent as compared to the same period last year, the figures showed.

Last month, the remittances mainly came from Saudi Arabia with 407.6 million dollars, the United Arab Emirates with 269.2 million dollars, Britain with 330.4 million dollars, and the US with 213.9 million dollars, according to the bank.

Workers' remittances play an important role in Pakistan's economy as they are one of the major sources of foreign exchange.