ISLAMABAD: Overseas workers’ remittances to Pakistan increased by 47.6 percent on a year-on-year basis in July 2024, the State Bank of Pakistan reported this week, with Ƶ remaining the top contributor for the South Asian country.
Remittances bring billions of dollars annually from overseas Pakistanis and are vital to Pakistan’s economy. These inflows bolster foreign exchange reserves, stabilize the balance of payments, and support the Pakistani currency.
“In terms of growth, during July 2024, remittances increased by 47.6 percent on y/y basis,” the SBP said in a press release on Saturday.
The central bank disclosed that Ƶ remained the top contributor with $761.1 million in remittances during July 2024, followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from where remittances amounting to $611.1 million were received.
Workers’ remittances amounting to $443.5 million from the UK were received while from the United States, Pakistan received workers’ remittances of $300.1 million.
Pakistan and Ƶ have deep cultural, defense and economic ties. The kingdom is home to over two million Pakistanis and for years has remained the largest contributor to remittance inflows.
Remittances play a major role in supporting Pakistan’s external account, especially at a time when the country is recording small gains after a prolonged economic crisis that diminished its foreign exchange reserves and weakened its national currency.
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Pakistan’s national carrier PIA have signed an agreement on Hajj flights, a spokesperson for the ministry said on Wednesday.
The Pakistani government approved the new Hajj policy earlier this month under which 179,210 Pakistanis would perform the pilgrimage next year under the government and private schemes.
“The national airline will provide travel facilities to 35,000 official pilgrims,” the spokesperson for the religious affairs ministry said in a statement.
“Agreements with Saudi Airlines and other local airlines will also be finalized soon,” the statement added, as PIA CEO Air Vice Marshal Aamir Hayat reiterated his commitment to provide the best facilities to Hajj pilgrims.
On Monday, Religious Affairs Minister Chaudhry Salik Hussain announced an instalment plan for pilgrims to pay Hajj fees.
The cost of next year’s Hajj under the government scheme is expected to range between Rs1,075,000 to Rs1,175,000, while an additional cost for the sacrifice of animals during the pilgrimage will be Rs55,000, according to the religious affairs minister.
The first installment of Hajj dues, amounting to Rs200,000, have to be deposited at the time of the application, while the second installment of Rs400,000 will be paid within ten days of the balloting and if your name is picked in the lucky draw.
The remaining amount can be paid by Feb. 10 next year.
RAWALPINDI: When Major Sania Safdar was posted with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) last year, she never expected that her service would lead her to becoming the first peacekeeper from the mission to receive the 2023 Certificate of Recognition for gender advocacy.
Safdar, 36, was presented the certificate in August this year by the New York-based UN Department of Peace Operations for advocating gender equality as a member of the UNFICYP. She served from July 2023 to November 2024 as the mission’s Force Signal Officer and one of its military gender focal points.
“I am the first [Pakistani] peacekeeper from that mission who received this certificate of recognition for gender advocacy, and I am very happy and proud,” Safdar told Arab News in an interview this week.
She said her work involved promoting equal representation of women in all activities, organizing initiatives for them and ensuring their participation in planning, exercises, and operations throughout the mission. Since her deployment to the mission last year, she proactively took charge of several initiatives “by focusing on integrating the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda into military components of the Mission’s work,” the UN said.
Getting the certificate of recognition is not the soldier’s only memorable achievement as a member of the UNFICYP.
After she left the peacekeeping force in Cyprus, the chief of the mission wrote a letter of appreciation to Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir, recognizing Safdar’s efforts as a staff officer.
“I am really happy and really proud to have two certificates with me when I finish my UN mission,” she said.
Safdar was also nominated for the 2023 UN Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award that “recognizes a military peacekeeper who has best integrated a gender perspective into peacekeeping activities.”
While the award went to Major Radhika Sen, an Indian peacekeeper deployed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Safdar said being nominated was achievement enough.
“Because of all my performance, I was nominated for this award,” she said.
“DREAM JOB”
Safdar hails from a small village in Pakistan’s Gujur Khan district and has a background in engineering.
“It was not very common in our village for the ladies to go outside and to live in the hostels for higher education,” Safdar said.
But her father, a retired teacher, encouraged her to join a post-graduate college in the city of Rawalpindi, from where she completed her Faculty of Science degree.
“When I came to know that now there is an opportunity for ladies from the engineering department to join the army, so it was my dream job,” Safdar said.
“Even after my BS [Bachelor of Science degree], I got the scholarship for my MS [Master of Science] education and it was a very good scholarship from abroad but I rejected that scholarship and I joined the military [in 2012].”
But life has not always been easy for Safdar, who is married to an army officer and has two sons under the age of ten. Indeed, while she described her service in Cyprus as a “wonderful experience,” living thousands of miles away from her young family came with its own set of challenges:
“In the middle of the mission, my elder son was facing some medical problem … and I was so much worried and so much concerned that my family responsibilities were being compromised.”
At one point, the major considered quitting the mission but her husband and family motivated her to continue serving.
It has all worked out for the best, as she said her family and especially her children were proud of her.
“When I visit their school they tell their class fellows, ‘Look, my mother is serving, my mother is in uniform,’ and sometimes they request me to, ‘Please come to our school and mama, please come in uniform’,” she said with a smile.
“This is, I think, the most proud moment for me that my kids, my parents, and my husband, they are proud of me.”
In the future, Safdar hopes other young women will learn from her example and follow their passions with “determination and faith.”
“If you really want to do something just go for it,” she said, “take the initiative and Allah Almighty will never, ever waste your efforts.”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday over 3,000 lakes had been formed in Pakistan due to accelerated glacial melt, posing an increased risk of flooding and putting the lives of over seven million people at risk.
Sharif was addressing a ceremony in connection with steps taken for the protection of glaciers in Baku where leaders of nearly 200 nations have gathered for COP29 climate talks this week.
“Accelerated glacial melt has led to the formation of more than 3,000 glacial lakes in the northern part of Pakistan, beautiful though but at the same time posing great threat,” Sharif said in a speech.
“It is estimated that out of these, 33 are at high risk of outburst flooding, putting at risk the lives of over 7 million people. This is a very grave situation and demands urgent action and now.”
The UN defines Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) as sudden events that can occur when glaciers melt and release millions of cubic meters of water and debris. In Pakistan, GLOFs can be a threat to the lives and livelihoods of people living in remote mountain areas, especially in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.
Outside the polar region, Pakistan is the country with the highest number of glaciers in the world at over 7,000. However, a combination of climate change and air pollution, including from neighboring countries like India and China, has significantly contributed to the rapid melting of these glaciers, causing devastating floods that have affected Pakistan’s people, livelihoods and the economy.
In 2022, the country experienced an unprecedented deluge and unexpected monsoon rainfall. It resulted in one-third of the nation being submerged and claiming the lives of 1,700 people.
Pakistan estimates the floods affected more than 33 million people, mainly in the Sindh and Baluchistan provinces, and caused economic losses that exceeded $30 billion.
ISLAMABAD: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation is in Islamabad this week and will hold discussions with top Pakistani officials on the “key benchmarks” of a $7 billion loan program approved in September, a finance ministry official said on Tuesday.
The IMF delegation led by Pakistan mission chief Nathan Porter arrived in Islamabad on Monday on an unplanned visit. The team is expected to hold meetings until Friday with top officials from ministries such as finance and energy and the Federal Board of Revenue, the main tax collection agency, to collect data on “loan program performance to date,” a finance ministry official told Arab News, seeking anonymity.
The IMF has said Porter’s visit is not part of the first review of the loan program, which is not scheduled to take place before the first quarter of 2025.
“Some key benchmarks of the loan program will come under discussion during the meetings, as Islamabad faces some revenue shortfall and a recent botched attempt to privatize the Pakistan International Airlines,” the finance ministry official said.
“Matters like external financing gap and reforms in the energy sector are also expected to be discussed with the IMF delegation.”
The IMF reached a staff-level agreement with Pakistan in July for a 37-month $7 billion bailout package, which the Fund’s Executive Board approved in September. This was the 25th loan program that Pakistan has obtained since 1958.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the ministry of finance said a delegation led by Porter had an “initial meeting” with finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.
Minister of State for Finance Ali Pervez Malik, Governor State Bank Jameel Ahmed, Federal Board of Revenue Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial and senior finance ministry officials were also present in the meeting, the ministry said.
Islamabad secured the bailout loan, critical to keeping its $350 billion fragile economy afloat, after taking painful measures such as hiking fuel and food prices and implementing reforms to broaden the country’s tax base and privatize state-owned entities.
“INTERIM CHECKS”
Pakistan’s macroeconomic conditions and investor sentiment have improved in recent months, which analysts say has led to a bullish trend in the country’s stock market.
Syed Atif Zafar, the chief economist at Topline Securities, said the IMF delegation’s meetings with Pakistani officials were part of “interim checks” to ensure a successful review of the loan facility next year.
“The government failed to achieve the tax revenue target in the first quarter that has perhaps necessitated this IMF visit, but still the authorities have multiple options and time to overcome this gap,” he told Arab News.
“The good thing at this point is that all structural and quantitative benchmarks of the loan program are on track.”
Tahir Abbas, a senior economist and head of research at Arif Habib Limited, said Pakistan last month requested the IMF for a $1 billion climate financing facility to mitigate climate risk, which would be discussed during the ongoing IMF visit.
“Pakistan’s revenue shortfall of around Rs200 billion ($720 million) in the first quarter has mainly necessitated this IMF visit,” he told Arab News.
“The finance ministry will now inform the IMF delegation about the possible revenue measures to overcome the shortfall and cut the expenditures.”
ISLAMABAD: The government of Punjab has closed all educational institutions in the province up to the higher secondary level from tomorrow, Wednesday, until the end of the week because of record-breaking smog that has already prompted the closure of primary schools and government offices and has sickened tens of thousands of people.
Record-high air pollution levels have triggered hundreds of hospitalizations, junior school closures and stay-at-home orders in several districts of Punjab, including the provincial capital of Lahore, which has been enveloped in a thick, toxic smog since last month.
On Tuesday, Lahore, home to 13 million people, had the worst air quality of any city in the world, according to live readings by IQAir, a Swiss air quality monitoring company.
“All the educational institutions […] up to higher secondary level shall remain closed and will shift to online mode with effect from Nov 13 within […] DG Khan, Bahawalpur, Sahiwal, Sargodha and Rawalpindi divisions […] till Nov 17,” the province’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in a notification issued on Tuesday, ordering schools to shift to “online mode.”
In Pakistan, the higher secondary level refers to upper secondary education, which includes grades 11 and 12. It is also known as intermediate education.
Speaking to reporters, Punjab Education Minister Rana Sikandar Hayat said the decision to close higher secondary institutes was taken “in light of the complaints received from the district.”
“This drastic decision had to be taken to protect children from the deadly effects,” he said. “There is a sense of educational loss, but the decision to close educational institutions is being taken out of compulsion.
Primary schools and government offices had already been closed until Nov. 17 in many districts of Punjab earlier this month, with school closures likely to affect the education of more than 20 million students, according to associations representing private and government schools.
Authorities in 18 districts of Punjab also closed all public parks, zoos and museums, historical places, and playgrounds for ten days last week.
On Friday, a court in Lahore ordered the government to shut all markets after 8pm. Authorities have already banned barbecuing food without filters and ordered wedding halls to close by 10pm.
On Monday, the UN children’s agency said the health of 11 million children in Punjab province was in danger because of air pollution
“Prior to these record-breaking levels of air pollution, about 12 percent of deaths in children under 5 in Pakistan were due to air pollution,” UNICEF’s representative in Pakistan, Abdullah Fadil, said.
“The impact of this year’s extraordinary smog will take time to assess, but we know that doubling and tripling the amount of pollution in the air will have devastating effects, particularly on children and pregnant women.”
