The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has allowed freelancers to receive up to $5,000 in payments per month as the central bank aims to increase the annual remittances by $1.2 billion.
The cap has been increased from $1,500 to $5,000 for freelancers offering their services to international clients and this has been done in a bid to encourage more skilled individuals to take up freelance jobs.
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Forex Association of Pakistan (FAP) President, Malik Bostan told a news website that around 300,000 freelancers receive $1.2 billion per year on average and it can be doubled to $2.5 billion in a short time.
Earlier, a number of freelancers opted to spend their funds abroad owing to the complex method of receiving payments, which hurt Pakistan badly in terms of foreign exchange.
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The upper limit for pensions has also been set to $5,000 which was previously set to $2,500 in 2018 under workers’ remittances. The notification, which was issued on Monday, will help attract more foreign remittances especially after a drop of 2% from $7.61 billion to $7.47 billion in the first four months of the current fiscal year.
The drop, however, is due to a global economic slowdown in the aftermath of the China-US trade war. The government eyes foreign workers remittances of $24 billion in FY2020, up from $21.8 billion in FY2019, however, SBP has projected it to be between $22.5-23.5 billion.
