Remittances from overseas Pakistanis in August 2020 show a slight fall fromJuly 2020 figures but continue to remain over $2 billion for the thirdmonth in a row.
According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), remittances reached $2.095billion in August 2020, which is approximately 1.25 times, or 24.4 percent,higher than the remittances recorded in the same month last year. Thisfigure is also largely in line with the SBP projections.
On a month-over-month basis, remittances were 24.3 percent lower than therecord level of $2.768 billion posted in July 2020. However, this decreasemainly reflects the usual seasonal decline in the post-Eid-al-Adha period.
Prime Minister Imran Khan also tweeted on Monday (today), saying
Overseas Pakistanis sent $2,095 million in remittances in Aug 2020 — 24.4%higher than Aug. last year — in addition to the record $2,768 million inJuly 2020. For the first two months of this fiscal year, our remittancesare up 31% over the same period last year. Alhamdulillah.
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Over the last three months, remittances to Pakistan collectively reached anunprecedented level of $7.3 billion. This amount is 37.2 percent higherthan the combined remittances of the same time period last year.
This level of growth has been described as ‘surprising’ since many globalthink tanks predicted a sharp decline in remittances in this period fordeveloping economies, including Pakistan.
Earlier this year, the World Bank predicted: “that remittances to Pakistanin 2020 will likely decline by 23 percent, totaling about $17 billion inthe wake of the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 outbreak”.International credit rating agency Moody’s report also said in July that“the remittance transfers… will decline sharply as a result, by around 20percent ($110 billion) globally in 2020”.
