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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Pakistan frequently encounters balance of payments
difficulties, requiring emergency funding and rescheduling
of
debt payments (see
table 8, Appendix). The main reason for
the
negative balance of payments is the chronic trade deficit.
However, remittances from Pakistanis employed overseas
have
compensated for a portion of the trade deficit.
Remittances sent
home from these workers increased from US$339 million in
FY 1976
to US$2.9 billion in FY 1983, when they exceeded total
commodity
export earnings. After FY 1983, remittances gradually
declined,
although they averaged US$2.3 billion between FY 1984 and
FY
1990. Remittances totaled US$1.8 billion in FY 1991 but
then fell
to US$1.5 billion in FY 1992, in part because of the
disruption
caused by the Persian Gulf War. In FY 1992, Pakistanis in
the
Middle East accounted for 67.1 percent of all remittances;
45.3
percent came from Saudi Arabia alone. Workers in Kuwait
provided
around 9 percent in the late 1980s, but that proportion
fell to
3.6 percent in FY 1992. Pakistanis also send significant
remittances from the United States (10.2 percent) and
Britain
(9.3 percent). (EIU 1992-93, 44; SS, 171, 191)
At the end of June 1993, Pakistani officials estimated
the
public and publicly guaranteed external debt at US$18.4
billion.
The World Bank, however, estimated the total external debt
at
US$24.1 billion at the end of 1992, up from US$16.7
billion at
the end of 1987. Total external debt was 48 percent of the
gross national product
(GNP--see Glossary).
Commercial borrowing is a
small proportion of debt; at the end of 1992, it accounted
for only 0.4 percent of long-term debt.
Data as of April 1994
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