KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has reported that the current account deficit from July to October of current financial year has increased to $1.759 billion from $1.368 billion of the same period of last year.
The Central Bank reported that the current account for October remained $347 million which is much higher than $79m in September. The report said that the deficit was widened due to higher import bill and lower growth in the export sector.
Import bills of both the goods and services also rose during July-October, increasing to $18.319 illion from $16.783 billion last year. The size of the $1.536 billion increase is very close to the four-month deficit of $1.759 billion.
By contrast, the export of goods and services could hardly show any improvement, increasing slightly by $153m in the four months.
Though the remittances during July-October were recorded at $6 billion with a rate of 15 per cent, the export sector’s poor performance has quashed the positive impacts of higher inflows.
Despite low oil prices, the import bill increased by half a billion dollars during the four months compared to the same period last year. It means the import bill could have been much larger had oil prices been what they were before the start of downward spiral. The oil prices are 30 to 35pc down compared to last fiscal year.
