Remittances Decrease by 12% to $2.4 Billion in September

Workers’ remittances in September decreased by 12.3 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis and stood at $2.437 billion compared to $2.780 billion during the same month of last fiscal year. The remittance inflows decreased by 10.5 percent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis in September 2022 as compared to August. According to the statistics by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), remittances stood at $2.4 billion in September whereas inflows stood at $2.7 billion in August and $2.8 billion in July respectively. The drop in remittance numbers can be attributed to the post-seasonal effect in August, however, the substantial drop in inflows in September has come as a surprise. It was expected that inflows of remittances will go up as the financial support from overseas Pakistanis was supposed to come into the country through active charitable organizations for the flood victims. During September, remittance inflows recorded a decline from all major countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE, GCC countries, US, UK, and EU bloc. Overall, the country received remittances worth $7.9 billion from overseas Pakistanis in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022-23, according to the SBP. The workers’ remittances during the first quarter of the current fiscal year are 6 percent less than the remittances of 8.2 billion during the same period of the previous fiscal year.