ISLAMABAD: Home remittances by Overseas Pakistanis increased by 100 million dollars following action launched three weeks back against illegal transactions by foreign exchange companies.This was stated by Advisor on Interior Rehman Malik while briefing newsmen on the issue in Islamabad on Thursday. He said the increase showed that the overseas Pakistanis were now relying more on normal banking channels for sending remittances back home.

The Advisor said the association of forex dealers pledged to deposit 500 million dollars per month in the State Bank of Pakistan as a gesture of goodwill to the Government. He said reports received from Karachi say that they are fulfilling their promise.

He said the rupee-dollar parity has also come down from 87 to 77 as a result of the action against currency dealers involved in illegal business. Referring to complaints about harassment of foreign exchange dealers, Mr. Rehman Malik said it was decided that action against any one involved in illegality would be taken after sharing of information with the Association. The Association also assured that it would cooperate fully in exposing those who were indulging in illegal transfer of foreign exchange.

The Advisor on Interior said during operation against illegal currency dealers, the FIA has taken into custody 17 computer servers containing data of such activities. Decoding of information of only three computers showed that illegal transactions worth 104 billion rupees and 300 million dollars were carried out.

He said the Government has approached governments of the United States, United Kingdom, UAE, Canada, Spain, Japan, China, Germany and Italy to know fuller details of how much money was illegally transferred abroad. About modus operandi of the dealers, he said dollar was purchased from Pakistan on lower rates and sold in the Afghan market at higher rates fetching profit of four to six rupee a dollar.

Similarly, those doing Hawala business have their elaborate network abroad. They received foreign exchange from clients, kept it abroad in their accounts and made payments in Pakistan in rupee. In this way no foreign exchange came to Pakistan and the reserves depleted. Mr. Rehman Malik dismissed speculations about involvement of any corruption in the currency scandal and said any one with evidence was welcome to share the information and necessary action would be taken.-SANA

About Noreen Gill

Noreen Gill has written 478 articles on this journal.

• View all posts by Noreen Gill →
• Blog

Popularity: 1% [?]