Trade deficit touches alarming all-time high of $48.66 billion

Despite ban on more than 800 items, trade deficit of Pakistan has reached an alarming all-time high of $48.66 billion, showing a 57 percent increase compared with last year’s deficit value of $30.96 billion

In April 2022, the trade deficit of Pakistan was $3.78 billion that rose to $4.04 billion in May 2022, indicating that the change of government could not pause or change the course of monthly deficits.

Earlier, the highest trade deficit of the country remained at $37 billion for the fiscal year 2017-18, caused mainly because of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) related imports.

The coalition government’s efforts and steps to cut the trade deficit have so far been of no use as in the last month of the outgoing fiscal year, Pakistan’s trade deficit remained $4.84 billion compared with last year June’s deficit of $3.66 billion.

According to the stats, the trade deficit of $37 billion in 2017-18 dropped to $31.8 billion in 2018-19, $23.2 billion in 2019-20 and bounced back to $30.80 in 2020-21.

The increase in the trade deficit has been caused due to a record increase in oil and commodity prices internationally as well as unprecedented increased imports compared with exports hovering around $2.5 billion to $2.8 billion.

The import bills increased to $80.51 billion or 43.45 percent in the fiscal year 2021-22 whereas in June, these bills went high from $6.28 billion to $7.74 billion.

On May 19, imports of more than 800 items were banned by the government to cut off the trade deficit.

Record increase in exports, of around $30 billion, was also witnessed during the fiscal year 2021-22, mainly due to textile exports.