Eid shopping craze: Expats Pakistanis sending millions of Eidi to relatives

By Ahmed Rayyan Aug 7th, 2012 ( 1 Comment )

The month of Ramadan starts with blessings and ends with happiness of Eid but builds a strong association with Pakistanis living abroad who used to send money to their relatives with open heart and pocket.

The Zakat and Fitra obligations, charity activities and shopping fever reach at their peak level during the month and people spend lots of money from their savings and income with a particular boost in remittances from overseas Pakistanis.

According to banking industry analysts, the remittance (money) amount from Pakistanis abroad is recorded at the highest during and before the month of Ramadan.

As per an estimate, an increase of 25 to 40 percent in remittances has been seen from different countries of the world as compared to other months.

About 1.5 billion dollar are likely to be received during the month August as compared to normal average of about 1 billion dollar.

The highest remittances amount comes from Saudi Arabia and UAE. These two countries and overseas Pakistanis contribute the biggest share, attributing about half of overall remittances inflows.

It is because the population of overseas Pakistanis at these Arab countries is good in numbers than different countries.

USA and UK are another two countries in which Pakistan nationals are in significant number hence their monetary contribution is also good. Besides money from Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman sent by Pakistanis are quite handsome particularly during these days.

As 10th of Ramadan starts, people belong to different income levels move to market, bazaars and shopping centers mainly for shopping dresses, footwear and multiple wearing items and home decoration instruments.

During the spree, banks and several money exchange companies become active in issuing cash. Rush and queues can be witnessed on the shops in almost all weeks of the Ramadan because people do collect gifts for their loved ones from different countries.

In addition to Eid shopping, Majority of people from middle and high income levels performs the obligation of Zakat in Ramadan as per their wealth and its criteria. In this regard, millions of rupees are sent by expatriate Pakistani to their deserving family members or poor people living in Pakistan.

Because Ramadan is supposed to be a month which multiplies deeds reward more than 70 times so everyone tries to perform the obligation of Zakat in this holy month in order to attract maximum blessings.

Secondly people know the traditional Eid is expense and every Muslim should celebrate it with zeal and enthusiasm without any sense of deprivation.

The remittance is one of the strong influencing elements of Pakistan macro-economy maintaining foreign exchange reserves of the country and value of rupee against dollar. And when see the whole story from this perspective, the role of expatriates Pakistanisis invaluable and memorable for us.