Pakistan has received remittances of $ 7.306 billion during the first 10 months of current financial year registering a growth of 15 percent and government should take measures to divert remittances to development projects for accelerating pace of development activities.

This was said by Zahid Maqbool, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) in a statement. He said that in the absence of government’s motivational role, remittances in Pakistan mostly go to the consumption activities and speculative or risky investments giving rise to inflation. 

He said countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have improved their economies by encouraging and facilitating migrants and their families to run tailor-made profitable businesses and make investments in development projects.

He said similar programs should be started in Pakistan to ensure effective utilisation of migrants’ funds. He said government should also encourage investment of remittances in infrastructure projects, both in urban and rural areas, on public-private ownership basis and to finance entrepreneurial activities.

Zahid Maqbool said that  government is taking many initiatives to improve power generation by developing different energy projects and constructing dams. However, it should also provide incentives to migrants’ families in urban areas and communities/groups receiving remittances in rural areas to become part of the energy generation projects.

He said government should consider to initiate community power generation programs with incentives and tax holiday for participating community members so that they could set up small power generation projects using solar energy and small-scale sugar mills and making use of sugarcane molasses for producing electricity.

He said apart from tailor-made projects for communities and individuals, the public sector development programs should also focus on development of infrastructure to push up economic growth rate and create employment opportunities for domestic workforce.