LAHORE: Pakistan booked imports worth $321 billion through the Pakistan Single Window (PSW) system over the past five years — about $30 billion higher than the import payments cleared by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) through banking channels during the same period.
Between July 2020 and June 2025, PSW recorded imports of $321 billion, while the SBP cleared $291 billion, highlighting a major discrepancy in national trade reporting. The report citied officials as saying that the gap requires detailed reconciliation of import and banking transactions.
The data compiled by PSW had not previously been made public, as the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) traditionally used figures from Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) for its monthly trade reports. However, PRAL’s figures were $16.5 billion lower than PSW’s over the same five-year period.
Government officials said part of the difference stems from accounting methods — SBP records only the cost of goods, while freight and insurance are treated separately — but the magnitude of the gap suggests other causes.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also asked Pakistan to publicly disclose and explain these discrepancies. During recent discussions, the Fund recommended a clear communication policy to restore confidence among data users and prevent further inconsistencies.
Officials told the IMF that incomplete trade data had been submitted earlier to the International Trade Centre (ITC) due to the transition from PRAL to PSW as the primary source. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) said the differences initially appeared minor but have widened in recent years.
Joint scrutiny by the FBR, PBS, PRAL, and PSW revealed that PBS had been using outdated data queries since 2017, contributing to underreporting. In FY2024–25, PSW booked imports worth $64.1 billion compared to $59.1 billion reported by the SBP — a $5 billion gap. In FY2023–24, the difference widened to $6.7 billion.
The largest single-year discrepancy occurred in FY2021–22, when PSW reported $82.3 billion in imports, PRAL $80.2 billion, and the SBP only $71.5 billion — a gap of $10.8 billion. Officials said the mismatch cannot be explained by freight charges alone.
Sources suggested that some payments may have been made outside formal banking channels or that importers might have used export finance facilities for local sales.
A committee formed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is investigating the issue, with trade data analysis underway to reconcile the differences and update previous records for submission to the IMF.
