February 2024 Sees a 6% Dip in Workers' Remittances

Islamabad: Remittances sent by overseas Pakistanis declined by 6 per cent to $2.25 billion in February 2024 compared to inflows of $2.398 billion registered in the previous month.

However, on a month-on-month basis, the inflows in February 2023 increased by 18 per cent over inflows of $1.9 billion registered in February 2023, according to the data on remittances released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

A breakdown of the numbers shows that the highest inflows were registered from Saudi Arabia, coming in at $540 million, followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at $385 million, the United Kingdom (UK) at $346 million, the United States (US) at $287 million, and European Union (EU) countries at $263 million.

The inflows from Saudi Arabia were up 19 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, while the inflows from UAE, and the US were up by 19 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. The inflows from European Union (EU) countries registered an increase of 7 per cent while that from the UK increased by 9 per cent.

During the eight months of the fiscal year 2023-24 (8MFY24), remittances stood at $18.08 billion, down 1 per cent compared to remittances of $18.30 billion registered in the same period of the previous fiscal year.