Record remittances signal disaster: govt: The News

By Saad Hasan

KARACHI: A 23 per cent increase in remittances sent home by overseas Pakistanis during last month could actually be a sign of increasing joblessness amid a global economic recession, top government officials warned.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Saturday reported that remittances had shot up to $739.43 million in March 2009 compared to $602.21m recorded in the same month of previous year.

“This could lead to a tsunami of jobless people approaching us,” Farooq Sattar, Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis, told The News. “It seems people who have lost work abroad are moving their capital back home.”

Even though, he said, there were no indications of any large number of expatriates returning but his ministry had already alerted the authorities about a possible ‘storm’. “I have written to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to apprise him in this regard.”

In its second quarterly economic review report, the SBP has also cautioned the government against too much reliance on remittances to meet the current account deficit.

Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin was also skeptical about the record increase in remittances during a single month. “I fear these numbers indicate that people who have lost their jobs abroad might be transferring their belongings back to Pakistan,” he told newsmen earlier in the day.

During July-March 2008-09, remittances swelled to $5.65 billion from $4.7bn in the same period of previous year. Highest amount of $1.29 billion was received from the US, the global powerhouse where hundreds of thousands of people have been sacked in the past few months.

For more on this article, please click on the following link: Record remittances signal disaster: govt: The News