PAKISTANI professionals working in the Middle East are nervous over the murky regional situation as polarisation intensifies, security challenges amplify and the economies of oil exporting countries adjust to the price slump.

A few have already returned but many more are planning to exit before the situation worsens.

“The air was thick with tension and there was no point waiting. We actually decided to move out of the Middle East in 2010 when the Arab spring broke out. Relocating took time but I am glad that we moved in and out of Jeddah with our choice and convenience”, an executive who quit his job and returned to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia last year, told Dawn.

“The long drawn conflicts were already taxing the Gulf economies but the oil price trend has been mounting pressure that, I believe, could further destabilise the region”, he added.

Anecdotal evidence suggests a pickup in the rate of return migration of skilled Pakistani workers in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. However, no such movement has been reported in the category of unskilled and semi skilled Pakistani workforce.

The empirical evidence, however, does not support the perception. The inflow of remittances, as reported by the State Bank, is rising though the pace of increase has moderated somewhat.

The data released last week reported remittance inflow in July - December 2015 posted a growth of 6.26pc. As compared to the $9.1bn inflow during the corresponding period last year, in the first half of the current fiscal overseas Pakistani workers remitted $9.7bn. Much of the growth comes from greater inflows from Middle Eastern countries, the data indicates.

Dr Nadeem Javed, chief economist Planning Commission, did not see any conflict in perception and evidence. “I find the perception perfectly logical, though we need not worry as long as the trend is limited to a very narrow class of elite workers in Gulf countries. The contribution of this class in remittance inflows is miniscule because they are few. And I don’t think that the working class cares for intangibles as long they getting their pay cheques”, he commented over phone.

On the possibility of choosing Lahore over Karachi to resettle, he thought the reasons were obvious. “I think more than anything the security perception is the deciding factor”, he commented.

Dr GM Arif, joint director, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, who has been working on issues related to overseas Pakistani workers with a focus on the Middle East, found the perception interesting and worth probing.

“This is a relevant observation that deserves to be monitored and studied not only because remittance inflows are crucial for the country’s balance sheet but also because of its ramifications on employment, beside the other impacts on society”, he said.

“Pakistani workers in the Arab countries are contractual. On completion of their contract period they are bound by law to leave the country. Since mid 1970s as many as eight million Pakistanis went to that region but at no point did those countries’s population exceed three million. This implies that they have been returning. We know very little about what they do on their return and if they resettle in the same town”.

“Yes, any change in the behaviour of Pakistani workers in Saudi Arabia should matter more because it hosts the biggest chunk of Pakistani workers of all categories”, he said over phone from Islamabad.

This scribe knows of cases where retired senior executives, who had the option to settle in the West, chose to return to Pakistan, but not necessarily to their home city.

“I have decided to make Lahore my new home. It is the capital of most happening province where I wish to start a business in collaboration with friends”, Syed Nasim Ahmed, a Karachiite, who worked at a senior position in the establishment of a member of the Saudi royal family told Dawn over phone from Lahore.

“Yes I could have bought citizenship of any country but legal status is not sufficient in the face of rising hostilities in the West towards Muslims. Besides, money transfer rules are too stringent and any slippage can land the whole family in trouble”.

“I worked very hard all my life, have earned well and saved. I think I deserve respect, peace and stability and am not ready to compromise on these. In the West humiliation is part of the package I gather”, he added.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, November 21st, 2016