Oil imports affects foodstuff

Islamabad: The import bill of Oil and eatables reduced by 3.75 per cent year on year in the first four months (July-October) of the current fiscal year,  according to data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

In absolute terms, import bill of these two products fell to $6.538bn in the period under review from $6.793bn in the same months of the last year.

Pakistan’s total import bill reached $14.458bn during the months under review compared with $14.642bn a year earlier, showing a decline of 1.26pc.

This shows that less than half of the total import bill was consumed by the import of these two commodities in the four-month period.
The import bill of food products witnessed a substantial decline of 9.1pc to reach $1.380bn in July-Oct 2013 from $1.518bn in the same period of last year.
The fall in the import of food items was mainly driven by import of palm oil, tea, soya bean oil and spices.

However, the import of sugar posted an increase of 9.56pc during the months under review compared with the same months a year earlier.
Statistics showed that oil import bill fell by 2.21pc to reach $5.158bn in July-Oct 2013 compared to $5.275bn in the same period of last year.

Of these, import of crude oil witnessed a rise of 6pc to reach $1.945bn in the period under review from $1.835bn a year ago.

However, the import of petroleum products fell by 6.59pc to $3.212bn from $3.439bn a year earlier.