Pakistan Trade Deficit in first nine months swells to USD23.38 billion

Rising imports in the first nine months and falling exports created immense pressure and the trade deficit accelerates to 23 billion dollars as shipments of machinery and other goods recorded sharp rise.

According to the figures released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics the exports during July 2016 to March 2017 showed a drop of 3 percent to 15.119 billion dollars as compared with 15.597 billion dollars of the same period preceding year.
The imports recorded a substantial increase of 18.67 percent to 38.504 billion dollars during first nine months of the current fiscal year compared with 32.445 billion dollars of the same period a year ago.
According to an analyst the rise in imports has been due to increase in arrival of capital goods specially plant machinery to set up new power plants, rise in shipments of crude oil and petroleum product imports and steel imports. These all are up due to heightened economic activity in the country and also due to China Pakistan Economic related developments.
Slowing of exports and rising imports accelerated the pace of trade deficit, which ballooned to whopping 23.385 billion dollars in the period ended March 31, 2017 from 16.848 billion dollars, widened by 38.80 percent.