South Asia Investor Review

Pakistanis sent nearly $5 billion to help their relatives in India in 2015, according to data released by the World Bank. This makes Pakistan the 4th largest source of foreign remittances to India, putting Pakistan ahead of Kuwait and the United Kingdom. Only United Arab Emirates, United States and Saudi Arabia sent more money to India. Source: Wall Street Journal   With over 1.4 million Pakistanis born in India, there are literally millions of family connections between the two countries and millions of reasons a person in Pakistan might find a way to get money to relatives in India. The money could be sent for a brother in need, a cousin’s wedding, an uncle’s funeral or even to help educate a niece, according to a report in the  Wall Street Journal . Source: Hindustan Times I personally know people in my own circle of friends and family in Pakistan who regularly send money to relatives in India to help them out in times of need. Such remittances are used to build homes

Pakistan has recently negotiated a good bargain with Qatar for importing $16 billion worth of liquified natural gas (LNG) . Pakistan will import as much as 20 million tons of the super-chilled gas annually from various sources including Qatar, enough to fuel about two-thirds of Pakistan’s power plants. Gas shortage has idled half the nation’s generators. A 75 percent drop in LNG prices since 2014 has  dramatically reduced the cost of the South Asian country’s energy needs, according to a Bloomberg report. LNG arriving in Pakistan from Qatar will fetch 13.37% of the preceding three-month average price of a Brent barrel (considering the present Brent price as a proxy, that would equate to $167.5 per 1000 cubic meters), according to a report in Azerbaijan's Trend News .  It translates to $4.50 per million BTUs. A comparison with Iran's gas deals with Turkey and Iraq indicates that Iranian gas will not be competitive with Qatari LNG on Pakistani market . In 2014 Iran was e