KARACHI: The country’s trade deficit has further widened by 5.5 percent to $16.909 billion for the July to March 2016 period, compared with a deficit of $16.027 billion for the same period last year.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data showed that the import and export gap stood at 52 percent in the first nine months of the current fiscal year. Exports fell 12.92 percent to $15.606 billion in July-March 2015-16 over the similar period a year earlier.
Trade imbalance, gap between exports and imports, was registered at $1.85 billion in March 2016 as against $1.51 billion of February, showing an increase of 22.41 percent.
The country’s imports went down by 4.22 percent to $32.5 billion from $33.9 billion of the previous year. Meanwhile, exports reduced by 12.92 percent to $15.6 billion during July-March of the ongoing fiscal year from $17.9 billion of the same months of the last year.
The PBS data showed that the exports showed decrease of 2.74 percent in March 2016 as against its preceding month of February. The country exported goods worth $1.74 billion in March as against $1.79 billion of February 2016. However, the imports went up by 8.78 percent to $3.6 billion in March 2016 from $3.3 billion of February 2016.
