Trade deficit soars to $5.8b for recent quarter: PBS

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released on Monday the quarterly figures of Pakistani foreign trade status noting $5.8 billion in the trade deficit, ARY News reported.

The numbers released today suggested a 19.49 per cent surge in losses in preceding month September when compared with the figures of the corresponding period last year.

The PBS reported that this September saw a jump of $2.39 billion in trade deficit than September last year.

The quarter of the fiscal year 2020-21 comprising July, August and September reflected the excess in imports relative to the exports of the country.

However, the report noted an increase in exports by 18% in the month of September than the previous month.

The exports of the month of August were recorded to be $1.58 billion which expanded to $1.87 billion in September.

On the other hand, the imports saw an increase of 28 per cent compared to last month as well, soaring to $4.26 billion in the month of September.

In the month of August this year, the imports had marked $3.32 billion, the statistics board reported.

The total exports in the recent quarter have contracted by $50 million to stand at $5.46.

The same quarter of the present fiscal year reflected imports to have expanded by 0.56 per cent to rest at $11.26 billion.

READ: Exports rise 6% to $1.87 billion in August

Earlier, it was reported that the country’s exports had risen by 6 per cent to US$1.872 billion during August as compared to the corresponding month last year. The figures were shared by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood said.

Sharing data of just exports separately on Twitter, he said: “The export figures for Sep 2020 have shown improvement. As compared to Sep 2019, our exports have grown 6% to USD 1.872 billion.”