Workers’ remittances remained beyond $2 billion for a record 22nd successive month, having an inflow of $2.8 billion received in the month of March, according to statistics revealed from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday.
Remittances made to a historic high of $2.8 billion through the month under consideration, showing a month-on-month increase of 28.3%, said an SBP official.
“With $2.8 billion of inflows during March 2022, workers’ remittances continued their unprecedented run of remaining above $2 billion since June 2020,” the central bank informed, continuing that this is the record-breaking monthly level for remittances of the workers.
Read more: Remittances soar to $20.14 billion during July-February
Referring to a cumulative basis, remittances added up to $23 billion in the first nine months of the financial year 2021-22, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.1%.
Moreover, remittances began to improve as global travel came to an end during the peak of COVID-19. That incident also disturbed the network of unlawful hawala/ hundi operators, who frequently offer a better price to the remittance senders as compared to the one offered by the official channels such as banks.
Consequently, the remittance inflows start to show improvement from June 2020 and came in at a historic high of $2.8 billion the previous months.
Country-wise Remittances in March
Meanwhile, Pakistanis living in Saudi Arabia remitted the biggest amount of $677.8 million in March 2022. It was 21.42% greater than the $558.2 million received in February 2022.
Furthermore, expatriates residing in the UAE sent home 33.23% greater amount as receipts increased from $386.6 million to $515.1 million.
Remittances from the foreign Pakistanis in the UK rose 25.62% to $401 million. They had remitted $319.2 million in February 2022.
The inflows rose 31.3% to $343.1 million from other GCC countries like Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar as compared to $261.3 billion in the last month.
They showed an increase of 18.03% to $280.1 million from the European Union in March compared to $237.3 million in February.
