Tea imports shrink 6.81 pc to $532.776 mln in FY20

July 27, 2020: The tea imports into the country witnessed a decline of 6.81 percent during the fiscal year 2019-20 as against the same period of last fiscal year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported. 

The tea imports into the country were recorded at $532.776 million during FY 2019-20 as against imports of $571.690 million in FY 2018-19, according to the latest PBS data. 

In terms of quantity, the tea imports witnessed a decline of 0.63 percent during the period under review by going down from the imports of 222,732 metric tons last year to 221,319 metric tons during FY 2020. 

The imports of overall food commodities during the period under review declined by 4.31 percent as these contracted from $5668.013 million last year to $5423.949 million during the current year.

Meanwhile, on a year-on-year basis, the tea imports into the country increased by 107.42 percent during the month of June 2020 compared to the same month of last year. 

The tea imports into the country in June 2020 were recorded at $59.684 million compared to the imports of $28.775 million in June 2019. 

On a month-on-month basis, the food imports increased by 36.58 percent in June 2020 when compared to the imports of $43.698 million in May 2020, the PBS data revealed. 

It is pertinent to mention that the country’s merchandise trade deficit witnessed a significant reduction during the fiscal year 2019-20 and declined by 27.11% as compared to the previous year. 

The Country’s deficit during July-June (2019-20) stood at $23.183 billion against the deficit of $31.805 billion during July-June (2018-19).

During the period under review country’s exports registered about 6.84% decrease, by going down from $22.958 billion last year to $21.387 billion during the current year whereas the imports declined from $54.763 billion to $44.570 billion, showing a sharp decline of 18.61%.

APP