Pakistan has witnessed an impressive growth in remittances which have reached about US$12 billion in this year. Government should take measures to utilize these remittances towards the long-term investment and infrastructure development projects for achieving better results for the country.

Remittances could accelerate the growth momentum of our fragile economy by maintaining macroeconomic stability at a time when foreign investment was on steep decline, Yassar Sakhi Butt, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has stated this in a statement. 

ICCI President was of the view that lack of infrastructure development has been a big hurdle in the economic progress of Pakistan which was putting strains on the smooth growth of trade and industrial activities. Therefore, Government should divert the inflow of these remittances for developing the country’s infrastructure at a fast pace.

He said that investment of remittances in infrastructure projects would provide a platform for jobs creation through generation of economic activity because unfortunately very small amount have been allocated for developing infrastructure projects.

Yassar Sakhi Butt said that remittances flow should go up further as par the countries of our region like India leads with $58 billion followed by China at $57 billion. He also called upon the financial institutions to become more proactive and increase the speed of remittance transactions for sustained growth of the economy.

ICCI President urged the Government for initiating capital projects to improve employment situation in the country as unemployment rate has increased from 7.4 percent in 2009 to 15.2 percent in 2010 and the percentage change was 105.41 percent which was the worst in the last 10 years.