Trade deficit shrinks by 31.7pc as Pakistan’s imports decline

KARACHI: Pakistan’s imports saw a significant decline of 19 percent, to $4.5 billion in January 2019, according to figures released by the statistics department.

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.

Economic analysts said that higher regulatory duty and check on unnecessary items had resulted in curtailing influx of imported goods. The import bill has also come down by 5.17 percent to $32.5 billion during July – January 2018/2019 as compared with $34.265 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.

The statistics department further said the trade deficit narrowed by 9.66 percent to the deficit of $19.264 billion during first seven months of the current fiscal year.

Earlier in the day, Adviser to PM on Commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood had said due to the increase in exports and decrease in imports, the county’s trade deficit shrank by $2.1 billion.

He said that only in months of January ,2019 country’s exports witnessed increasing trend by $1 billion because of duties of non essential items, adding that in coming five years the exports would further increase.