Massive rise of 11.8 percent imports observed in last two months
The Federal Bureau of Statistics has said that Pakistan’s imports of oil and food items increased by 11.4 percent to $5.08 billion in the first two months of the current fiscal year from $4.56 billion a year ago.
According to the report of newspaper, on the contrary, textile and clothing exports could only increase by 4.2 percent to reach 3.05 billion dollars on an annual basis due to the high cost of local production due to the decrease in demand and expensive energy.
Further details show that imports of petroleum products increased by 7.8% in value, crude oil imports increased by 10.5% during the period under review while prices of liquefied natural gas decreased by 3.37%. Imports increased by 41.50% in value in FY23.
Massive rise of 11.8 percent imports observed in last two months
The food import bill rose 21 percent to $1.78 billion in the two months from $1.47 billion a year earlier to cover the gap in domestic production, with the largest share of the food bill being wheat, sugar , came from edible oils, spices, tea and pulses.
Pakistan imported 622,515 tonnes of wheat to meet the shortfall in domestic production. In contrast, the July-August machinery import bill decreased by 30.6 percent to $1.29 billion from $1.86 billion in the same period last year.
