Machinery import goes up by 6.36% in five months

ISLAMABAD: The imports of the overall machinery group witnessed an increase of 6.36 per cent during the first five months of the current fiscal year (2023-24) compared to the corresponding period of the last year.

The total imports of the machinery group during July-November (2023-24) stood at $ 2,935.576 million against the imports of $2,760.055 million during the same period of the last year, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

The import of agriculture sector machinery and equipment surged by 60.76 per cent from $19.784 million to $31,804 million; office machinery including data processing equipment 57.11 per cent from $129.909 to $204.095 million; construction and mining machinery by 3.87 per cent from $33.260 million to $34.546 million; electricity machinery and apparatus 17.10 per cent from $778.902 million to $912.073 million; telecom related equipment 74.36 per cent from $455.625 to $794.445 million; mobile phone 112.20 per cent from $290.550 to $616.541 million and other apparatus 7.77 per cent from $165.075 million to $177.904 million.

However, during the period under review, the import of power-generating machinery declined by 26.24 per cent from $ 243.135 million to $ 179.337 million; textile machinery by 73 per cent from $212.786 to $56.803 million; and other equipment by 18 per cent from $886.654 million to $722.473 million.

Meanwhile, on a year-on-year basis, the machinery group imports increased 9.17 per cent during November 2023 compared to the same month of last year, from $ 534.863 million to $583.926 million.

On a month-on-month basis, the machinery imports into the country came down by 15.95 per cent during November 2023, compared to the imports of $694,762 million in October 2023, according to the PBS data.