July 24, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 27, 1427

HAVING achieved a record rise in remittances of overseas Pakistanis to $4.6 billion in the last fiscal year, Pakistan now faces a prospect of falling inflows because of a big drop in the number of workers going abroad for employment.

And that can hurt the country in a global environment when the world oil price has touched $78 a barrel and Pakistan’s balance of trade last year ran a deficit of almost $11 billion. And it suffered a balance of payment deficit of $4.1 billion in the same year.

While the remittances have been steadily rising during the last five years, particularly after 9/11, the number of senders of the money is declining because of the shrinking numbers of overseas Pakistanis.

Disturbing too is the fact that the ‘hawala’ system of remittance which went down after 9/11, has assumed a new vigour.

The number of new departures for working abroad is said to have declined by 50 per cent over the last three years. The number has come down from 0.223 million departures in 2003 to just 91000 in 2005.

A number of factors have contributed to that, including substantial changes in the quality and the qualifications sought by overseas employers. And the Gulf states prefer to provide employment to their own people rather than employ expatriate workers.

The global war against terrorism has also affected overseas employment of Pakistanis, as the employing countries have become cautious about Muslims, sometimes too arbitrarily.

The remittances which had touched almost $3 billion in the 1980s when a great many construction workers from Pakistan went to the Gulf states ,had fallen to $1 billion by 2001-02, when they rose to $4.236 billion and stayed at that level for three years, touching the record $4.6 billion last year.

But soon to come for Pakistan is the decline in the number of workers going abroad. It is not only that the Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia are prefer their own workers because of the possible political consequences of having too many expatriate workers in countries with small populations, but also the complaints against Pakistani workers are increasing.

A Kuwaiti minister on a visit to Pakistan last month was asked by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to employ more Pakistanis. He said that Kuwait had not employed any Pakistani worker last year and was not preparing to do this year.

Recently there was a shocking instance in Malaysia of some Pakistanis mistaking the South African Deputy High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur for a rich tourist, kidnapping him, looting him and holding him under restraint for a week.

There have been cases of ‘karo kari’ murders in Denmark among Pakistanis resulting in large scale arrests and trials.

There have been karokari murders in Britain as well, where some Pakistanis behave as if they are back home and are free to do what they do at home to punish their relations. There have been cases of Pakistanis staying abroad with wrong passports.

Sometime back, Norway expatriated 20 Pakistanis who were living there as Afghan nationals. Sometime ago a Pakistani killed his wife at a railway station where she had sought refuge in a home for battered wives. He was also suspected of killing four of their six children.

Such crimes get a great deal of publicity in the local press if not in the national press abroad and that is not helpful to get more overseas employment for Pakistanis when too many Muslims are mistaken for terrorists.

The number of Pakistanis overseas in between three and four million which is a floating population, as those whose terms of contract expires usually return home, but some disappear from their address the moment their contract expires and the local police have to track them down and expatriate them.

And they are a very small part of the overall migrant workforce in the world which is 200 million in size or three per cent of the population of the world. Pakistanis remit a small part of the global remittances of $400-450 billion. The average earnings of the Pakistanis is very low as compared to the Pakistanis and other skilled workers.

The Pakistan government has appointed community welfare attaché in world centers with large number of Pakistani workers to help them with their problems, but they are not always able to prevent them from committing crimes.

The international organisation for migration last week held a workshop attended by officials of ten Asian nations to discuss and share the experience and best practices of labour migration polices . They were discussing mostly the problems of migration between the European Union and the Asian states. Among the countries participating at the Islamabad workshop were Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Pakistan is trying hard to check illegal immigration or overstay of Pakistani workers abroad who then face expulsion as from Oman in large numbers periodically.

But the government cannot be too vigilant and spend vast sums in checking such illegal migration and overstaying.

Meanwhile the prime minister wants a taskforce to find ways of bringing the earnings of Pakistanis from countries where there are no Pakistani banks and no Pakistani foreign exchange agencies. Such a step is regarded essential when the ‘hawala’ is tending to come back to full life.

The government is also increasing by about 700 items which the Pakistanis overseas can bring in with no or partial taxation. That should improve the supply position in the country substantially without adding to the foreign exchange liabilities.

Pakistan can ill- afford a reduction in the home remittances when the world price of oil rises to $78 a barrel and the trade deficit targeted this year is $9.6 billion. So, it has to redouble its efforts to send more Pakistani workers abroad and collect their remittances through formal channels.