Current Account deficit for July – Nov FY ’18 reaches 6.43 billion

According to the latest State Bank data published today, Pakistan’s Current Account Balance increased by 90.7% and has reached $ 6.430 billion during the July – November, FY 18 against $ 3.371 billion during the same period last year.

The deficit has widened over the year as country has been failing miserably at increasing exports and decreasing imports. The Government has reiterated the claim that rise in increase of machinery imports in the wake of development projects under CPEC is one of the main reasons of the widening deficit.

Pakistan recently increased Regulatory Duty on a range of products in an effort to discipline the Export/Import structure of Pakistan. However, the efforts have yielded no positive results for the economy as the recent Currency Depreciation is set to widen the deficits even further if concrete steps are not taken in due time.

Meanwhile, Month on Month, Current Account Deficit during November 2017 totaled at 1.43 billion dollars.

Pakistan’s Goods Exports have seen a positive – but not enough – increase during the period. Pakistan’s Total Export of Goods and Services went from $ 10.745 billion during July – Nov 2017 to $ 11.864 billion in July – Nov FY 2018.

On a positive note, however, Pakistan Goods Export (FOB) saw a significant increase as exports of Goods went up from 1,971 million to 2,141 million during the July – Nov period. Other exports (Exports of Services, Transport, Telecom, Computer & Info Services) registered an incremental increase whereas construction exports almost halved from 10 million to 5 million.

Month on month, Pakistan’s exports saw a 7.1% increase in November with total Exports clocking in at 2.548 billion.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s perennial problem of imports continues to linger on. Pakistan continues to import more than it exports which has fractured the backbone of the economy in general. Total Imports of Goods and Services also saw an incline from 21.604 billion last year to 26.053 billion during July – Nov, FY 2018.

November imports also saw a 103 million increase during the month of November, with major chunk of the increase coming from Transport and Import of Services. Other Business and Services imports also increased by 52.74% to 278 million during the month of November.