Trade deficit shrunk by over 37% in March: Hammad Azhar

ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Revenue Hammad Azhar has said trade deficit of the country has shrunk by more than 37 percent during the last month as compared to current period of March last year, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

The minister said in his tweet, “The Trade Deficit of Pakistan fell by more than 37% in March 2019 over the same month last year.”

 

The Trade Deficit of Pakistan fell by more than 37% in March 2019 over the same month last year. It is a very positive sign that the 5 year build up in external deficits have now started reversing sharply. Economic stabilisation policies of PTI govt are bearing fruit.

— Hammad Azhar (@Hammad_Azhar) April 9, 2019

The minister of State said economic stabilization policies of PTI government are bearing fruit.

Last month, Pakistan’s imports had seen a significant decline of 19 percent, to $4.5 billion in January 2019, according to figures released by the statistics department.

Read more: Pakistan’s trade deficit shrinks by 14 per cent as imports decline

According to the department, Pakistan had imported items worth $5.57 billion in January 2018, while the amount of imports reduced to $2.04 billion in Jan 2019.

The significant decline in imports helped the trade deficit to shrink by 31.73 percent to $2.46 billion in January 2019 as compared with $3.6 billion in the same month of the last year.

While the exports grew by only 4 percent to $2.04 billion during the month under review as compared to $1.96 billion in January 2018.