ISLAMABAD: The country’s trade deficit has widened by 6.44 percent during the first half (July – December) of fiscal year 2020/2021 owing to uptick in imports during past two months.
According to trade data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Thursday, the trade deficit was recorded at $12.42 billion during July – December of fiscal year 2020/2021 as compared with the deficit of $11.67 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.
The exports of the country witnessed a growth of five percent to $12.1 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year as compared with $11.52 billion in the corresponding half of the last fiscal year.
Similarly, the total import bill of the country registered an increase of 5.72 percent to $24.52 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year as compared with $23.2 billion in the corresponding half of the last fiscal year.
The trade deficit was widened sharply by 32 percent in December 2020 to $2.68 billion as compared with the deficit of $2.03 billion in the same month of 2019.
The exports have witnessed 18.31 percent growth to $2.35 billion in December 2020 as compared with $1.99 billion in December 2019.
Meanwhile, the import bill during December 2020 registered a growth of 25.25 percent to $5.04 billion as compared with $4.02 billion.
