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Pakistani expats send home $9.7 billion in six months

Remittances received in July-December from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) increased 9.4% to $2.1 billion on a YoY basis.

Islamabad: Overseas Pakistanis sent remittances amounting to $9.7 billion in July-December, which translates into a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 6.2 per cent, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Remittances amounted to $9.1 billion in the same six months of the preceding fiscal year. They amounted to almost $1.63 billion in December alone, which is 2.8% higher than the remittances received in the preceding month, SBP data shows.
Pakistanis based in foreign countries sent home $18.4 billion in 2014-15, which translated into a YoY increase of 16.5%. Inflows from Saudi Arabia at $2.9 billion were the largest source of remittances in July-December, up 9.3% from the corresponding period of the last year.
Remittances received in July-December from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) increased 9.4% to $2.1 billion on a YoY basis. Inflows from the UAE had registered the largest increase (26.1%) from any major remittance-sending country in 2014-15, SBP data shows.
In the first six months of the current fiscal year, remittances from Dubai have surged 42% YoY. But the figure for overall inflows from the UAE so far has remained subdued because of a 27.2% annual decline in remittances from Abu Dhabi over the same period. Remittances from the United States and the United Kingdom remained $1.3 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, in July-December. The YoY change in remittances from the US and the UK has been -4.4% and 3.2%, respectively.
In the presence of a wide gap between the rates of investment returns in the United States and Pakistan, US workers of Pakistani origin would prefer investing their savings in Pakistan until recently - something that resulted in healthy annual growth in worker remittances from the United States for many years.
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