KARACHI: In February, the remittances sent by Pakistanis living abroad rose year over year, although the total inflows for the first eight months of FY24 decreased by 1.2%.
According to data from the State Bank of Pakistan, which was made public on Friday, the nation received $2.249 billion in February—a $148 million or 6% drop from $2.397 billion in January.
On the other hand, inflows increased by 13 percent in February compared to $1.990 billion in the same month in FY23.
Among the years, FY23 was the worst, with $4 billion less in inflows than the previous fiscal year, FY22. The economy was severely impacted by this since the nation had been trying to obtain dollars to prevent a sovereign default. In order to prevent the nation from going into default, the then-government was able to reach an agreement with the IMF for a $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).
According to the most recent SBP data, remittances from July to February were still less than they were in the prior year, indicating that the nation has not yet fully recovered from FY23’s poorest performance.
The nation received $18.082 billion in total over the eight months, a $226 million loss and 1.2 percent less than the $18.308 billion received during the same period of the previous fiscal year.
Dollar climbs to a two-year high of Rs. 279.04; sovereign dollar bonds
The largest amount of remittances, $4.381 billion, came from Saudi Arabia between July and February of last year; yet, this amount was still 1.2 percent less than that of the previous year.
Over the same period, the United States and the United Kingdom recorded increases in inflows of 4.7 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively, to $2.147 billion and $2.696 billion. With a total of $3.12 billion from July to February, the UAE had the second-highest remittances on the list despite a 2.6 percent fall in inflows.
The amount of money coming in from EU nations has been rising each month; in the first eight months, it increased by 9.7% to $2.248 billion. GCC nations also gave $1.974 billion to Pakistan.
Gain in Rupee
On Friday, the interbank market saw a 25 paise increase in the value of the rupee against the US dollar. The dollar’s closing price was announced by the SBP to be Rs279.04, up from Rs279.29 the previous day.
Nevertheless, the currency market failed to identify any catalyst for the PKR’s increase, especially in light of the SBP’s two recent declines in foreign exchange holdings to $7.895 billion.
There was a lot of expectation that the third $1.2 billion tranche from the IMF would arrive by the end of this month or early next month.
Bonds denominated in sovereign dollars
However, when the IMF stated that it was looking forward to cooperating with the new government, the nation’s sovereign dollar bonds increased by as much as three cents on Friday, reaching their highest level since early 2022, according to Reuters. The most valuable maturity was 2036, which gained three cents to trade at 76.64 cents. It was expected to gain about five cents in the second week.
