February 19, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 11, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 18: Overseas Pakistanis have sent 22 per cent more remittances during the last seven months of the current fiscal reflecting the high confidence on economic stability of the country.

In a situation where most of the Pakistanis becoming easy prey to the uncertainty regarding the elections and are prone to quickly accept the negative signals, the continued high rate of remittances would provide a sigh of relief to the economic managers of the country.

During the last seven months, (July-Jan 2007-08), total remittances reached at $3,623 billion, which were 22.4 per cent higher than the corresponding period of the previous year.

This must be encouraging for the government and the investors, who had halted investing in the economy ahead of elections, that the overseas Pakistanis did not show any weakness in their confidence over the economic growth.

In January alone, Pakistanis sent over 42 per cent more remittances compared to the same month of last year. January was one of the most vulnerable months in terms of high degree of political uncertainty.

During January Pakistani workers remitted an amount of $557.07 million, up from $165.74 million or 42.35 per cent. They had sent $391.33 million in January 2007.

The monthly average was even higher than the last year when the country received a record $5.5 billion for the whole year. If the trend continues till end of the current fiscal, the remittances will be another record.

The monthly average remittances for the period July-January, 2007-08 comes out to $517.63 million as compared to $422.76 million during the same period of the last fiscal. It also showed an increase of 22.44 per cent.

The remittances from the United States have crossed $1 billion mark for the first time and the country became the highest remittances sending destination for Pakistan. The increase in seven months is 33 per cent higher than the same period of last year.

The State Bank report said that remittances increased from all over the world. However, the increase from the US was clearly very high.

The high remittances is also encouraging for the country as the trade of goods and services were unexpectedly low soaring the collective deficit of about $9.650 billion in the first 6 months of the current fiscal, which is all time high.

On the other hand, the foreign investment has fallen sharply during the same period while the hope for improvement is linked with the improvement in the country’s political image.

Analysts said the bad image of the country -- emerged after the imposition of emergency, the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and purging of judiciary, would be improved after the establishment of a new government in Islamabad.