KARACHI: Despite deep recession in the US and massive fall of oil income of the Middle Eastern countries and erosion of boom in the Gulf countries, remittances sent home by overseas Pakistanis grew up by over 19 per cent in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.

Inflows from the Middle Eastern countries were amazing and registered a high growth of 34 per cent.

The State Bank reported on Monday that Pakistan received a total of 6.355 billion (double than the foreign direct investment so far received this year) as remittances which was over $1 billion or 19.5 per cent higher than the same period last year.

The remittances showed that Pakistanis living abroad were still on jobs and were sending dollars to their homeland.

The inflow from US slightly declined by $28 million during this period, but still highest remittances were coming from the US economy plagued by deep recession.

In the last 10 months, Pakistanis in US sent $1.435 billion helping the country to keep its vulnerable foreign exchange reserves intact.

The inflows from the Middle Eastern countries, including UAE and Gulf countries (Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain) witnessed a substantial increase in remittances.

Oil exporting Arab countries were baldy hit by the enormous fall in oil prices as a consequence of recession in the biggest US economy along with other developed economies.

The fall of oil income forced the Arab governments to close down projects worth billions of dollars and it resulted in loss of thousands of jobs.

The impact of loss of jobs was reflected from the declining inflows from these countries during April, but the fall was not massive.

However, during these 10 months, the inflow from Saudi Arabia rose by $262 million to $1.264 billion, remittances from UAE increased by $459 million to $1.366 billion and from GCC by $201 million to $966 million.

The inflows were encouraging as these jumped by 34 per cent from the Middle Eastern countries which showed the depth and strength of economies.

The economy of Dubai plunged during a year due to global financial crisis and over 40 per cent employees have lost their jobs alone in Dubai.

Financial hardships in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and other UAE countries have not yet made their full impact on Pakistan.

Analysts said if recession persists for a longer period and if oil prices remain below $60 a barrel, Pakistanis might lose more jobs in the months to come and it might be a severe blow to the economy of Pakistan and foreign exchange reserves.