KARACHI, Feb 17: Workers' remittances or money sent back home by overseas Pakistanis totalled $2.256 billion during the period July-January 2003-04, down six per cent from about $2.402 billion during the same period of 2002-03.

According to the State Bank data released on Tuesday, overall remittances fell by $146 million in seven months to January 2004 primarily due to lower inflows from the US and the UAE.

Workers' remittances from the US and the UAE totalled $678 million and $352 million, respectively, in July-January 2003-04. In a year-ago period, the remittances from the two countries stood around $765 million and $544 million.

A ministry of finance official when contacted over telephone in Islamabad said that remittances from the UAE had fallen as exporters had stopped parking export proceeds there only to bring them back home in the name of remittances.

He admitted that the crazy buying of the Iraqi dinar by the UAE-based Pakistanis had also resulted in lower remittances. But he felt that after the issuance of a strong warning by the State Bank against crazy buying of the Iraqi dinar the remittances from the UAE would pick up.

Last week the central bank warned people buying the Iraqi dinar to do so on their own risk. Money changers said this had slowed the dinar buying both by local Pakistanis as well as by expatriates living in Dubai.

Whereas workers' remittances from the US and the UAE fell 11 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively, in seven months to January 2004, remittances from other centres like Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UK went up.

In January 2004 alone, net workers' remittances totalled $382 million - almost equal to $383 million received in January 2003. A press release issued by the State Bank said that (at $2.256 billion) workers' remittances in seven months to January 2004 was in line with the target of $3.6 billion set for this fiscal year.