Although the recent spurt in home remittances is a matter of great relief, there are some genuine concerns about their effectivity in relation to country's external sector woes. A sense of complacency seems to have overtaken our policymakers after home remittances showed a sharp increase as, according to the latest data released by the State Bank of Pakistan, overseas Pakistani workers remitted dollar 10.719 billion during the first half of FY19 as compared to dollar 9.745 billion received during the same period in the preceding year, showing a sharp growth of dollar 974 million or about 10 percent. It has been found out that Saudi Arabia continues to be the biggest source of inflows from where Pakistani workers remitted dollar 2.567 billion during July-December, 2018 as against dollar 2.53 billion in the same period of last year, representing a modest increase of 1.46 percent. The kingdom was closely followed by the UAE from where home remittances received amounted to dollar 2.292 billion, up 6.1 percent, over dollar 2.16 billion in the same period of last year. These statistics also show that not only are the two Arab countries helping out Pakistan through bailout packages, these continue to remain the principal sources of foreign exchange through remittances. The PTI government must protect and preserve Pakistan's relationship with Saudi Arabia. It must do adopt a similar approach to Pakistan-UAE relationship as well.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019