Pakistan's remittance from Kuwait grows to 9.42%

The overseas Pakistani workers remitted USD 558.29million in the first 10 months (July-April) of this fiscal year, a growth of 9.42 percentcompared with USD 511.08 million received in 2013 and USD 480.09 million in 2012,said official data.According to the Statistics & DWH Department of State Bank of Pakistan, theremittance received from Kuwait grew to 9.24 percent in 2014 as compared to 6.46 in2013. The remittance received from Kuwait was USD 56.57 million in April 2014compared to 51.87 in April last year and USD 58.95 in March 2014. "The remittances are rising at the modest pace that is quite encouraging for thecapital and financial accounts of the country," according to a senior Pakistanieconomist, Maqsud Qadir who further said that data from State Bank has revealedthat the Middle East countries took the lead in attracting remittances inflows in thecurrent fiscal year with Kuwait holding a decent share in the workers' remittances.The overseas Pakistani workers remitted USD 12.9 billion in the first 10 months(July-April) of this fiscal year, a growth of 11.45 per cent compared with USD 11.57billion received during the same period of last year.The inflow of remittances in the 10-month period from Saudi Arabia, United States,United Kingdom, GCC countries including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, and theEuropean Union (EU) amounted to USD 3.8 billion, USD 2.52 billion, USD 2.02 billion,USD 1.8 billion, USD 1.52 billion and USD 355.31 billion respectively.The Middle East showed a mixed picture: robust economic activity in Saudi Arabia,Kuwait and Abu Dhabi helped increase Pakistan's remittances, inflows from Omanand Qatar were stagnant, while inflows from Dubai and Sharjah fell. Over the lastfew years, workers' remittances have become one of the most important sources offorex receipts on the back of the rising number of Pakistanis seeking employmentabroad.