KARACHI: The central bank\u2019s governor is confident that the country will have no problem in meeting foreign payment obligations as more Pakistani workers went abroad during the last fiscal year, hence more remittances are expected this year.
\n\u201cOutlook remains positive as the number of Pakistanis who proceeded abroad increased by 16.3 per cent in 2015-16,\u201d State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Ashraf Mahmood Wathra told a press conference on Friday. More than 40pc of these people moved to Saudi Arabia.
\n\u201cAs of today, external debt servicing obligations for Pakistan are not more than an average of $5 billion per year until 2020,\u201d he said.
\nSays number of Pakistani workers going abroad rose 16pc last fiscal year
\nThe SBP governor added that the country successfully met higher obligations in excess of $6bn in 2012-13 and 2013-14, even with much smaller volume of foreign exchange reserves.
\nDownplaying hue and cry over a 20pc decline in the July remittances, he said the 10 holidays during the month blocked the inflows. Moreover, the gap looked bigger as remittances in June were much higher because of Eidul Fitr, he said.
\nAnd although year-on-year growth in remittances slowed down to 6.4pc in the preceding fiscal year, Pakistan still received around $20bn, he said.
\nOn reports that thousands of Pakistanis have lost their jobs in Saudi Arabia and awaiting dues, he said the Saudi government has assured their payments would be cleared.
\nHe stressed that macroeconomic indicators were much better than 2013 and some media people and analysts were painting a bleak picture of the economy with wrongly quoted data and without considering the relevant perspective.
\nThe governor said the average gross domestic product growth during FY09 and FY13 was 2.8pc, which rose to 4.3pc during FY14 and FY16. Similarly, average inflation was 11.8pc during FY09-FY13 which fell to 5.3pc during FY14 and FY16.
\nMoreover, the country\u2019s total public debt stock (excluding external liabilities) was Rs19.7 trillion as of June 2016. Of this, the domestic component was Rs13.6tr and the external component was Rs6.1tr. Thus, around 69.2pc of total debt was domestic.
\nHe said Pakistan\u2019s external debt has increased with an average growth of 6.2pc since 2013 and reached $57.7bn in FY16. He said the public sector external debt was eight times higher than the reserves of the State Bank in 2013 which has fallen to just 3.2 times.
\n\u201cPower and gas supplies to exporting firms have largely been smoothened out. Law and order has improved. The government has committed to settle refund claims of exporters. Private firms are cash rich, and interest rates are also low; new investments will bring in innovation and may also help diversifying the product base,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KARACHI: The central bank\u2019s governor is confident that the country will have no problem in meeting foreign payment obligations as more Pakistani workers went abroad during the last fiscal year, hence more remittances are expected this year. \u201cOutlook remains positive as the number of Pakistanis who proceeded abroad increased by 16.3 per cent in 2015-16,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\n