ISLAMABAD: Federal Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir has announced the trade deficit for the first eight months of the current fiscal year during the session of the National Assembly.
While explaining the declining trend in trade deficit in the recent years, Khurram Dastgir said that this fiscal year from July 2013 to February 2014 the difference in national export and import volumes remains as usual tilted towards higher imports. The volume of the country’s exports stands at $ 16.866 billion, he said, adding that the import volume stood at $ 29.408 billion. The trade deficit has been calculated at $ 12.542 billion.
The minister, while addressing the Parliament, said that the volume of country’s imports has been traditionally higher than the volume of national exports. Dastgir said that trade deficit in the fiscal year 2011-12 was $ 21.288 billion as the export volume was $ 23,624 billion while imports stood at $ 44.912 billion. Whereas, he said, in 2012-13 it decreased to $ 20.490 billion as a result of increase in export volume to $ 24.460 billion and a slight decline in import volume to $ 44,950 billion.
