KARACHI: Pakistan has imported cell phones worth Rs84.2 billion from July to April 2018/2019 despite serious economic difficulties.
According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) the country imported mobile phones Rs84.2 billion during first ten months of current fiscal year as compared with Rs73.77 billion in the corresponding months of the last fiscal year, depicting increase of 14.14 percent.
The rise import of cell phones increased despite the restrictions imposed by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) that only registered cell phones would be activated in the country.
Further the duty and taxes have been increased on the import of cell phones during past two mini budgets.
Experts said that the rise in import value of cell phone was also due to depreciation in local currency against dollar.
The import of cell phones in dollar term has decline by 7 percent to $632 million during July – April 2018/2019 as compared with $678.57 million in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.
