Trade surplus in food products improves by 5 percent over the year

April 19, 2019 (MLN): Pakistan has recorded a surplus of $79.26 million in trade of food products for March 2019 as export worth $472.08 million was reported against imports worth $392.8 million.

As compared to last month when the surplus was only $3.55 million, the country has made very impressive gains in food trade. Similarly, when seen in contrast with the $75.16 million surplus recorded last year, the trade in this category has improved by over 5%, year-on-year.

The month-on-month (MoM) performance is attributed to the 15.6% improvement in exports and the 2.9% reduction in imports.

Overall exports soared despite the significant decline of 39% in vegetable exports, and on the backs of 49% higher exports of fish products (worth $45.9 million) and more than double exports of sugar (worth $22.3 million) this month.

Apart from this, vegetable exports ($29.99 million) grew by 26.5%, MoM and the value of rice exports expanded by 13%.

The MoM imports were reduced despite noticeable increments in imports of milk products (35.3%) and soyabean oil (34%).

On the other hand, the year-on-year (YoY) improvement came about as a result of substantial cut down in imports which declined by 23.6%. This balanced out the 19.88%, YoY decline in exports during the month.

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