Pakistan’s trade deficit shrinks by 14 per cent as imports decline

[BHarwana]

ISLAMABAD: Owing to practical steps taken by the incumbent government, the trade deficit has dropped by 14 per cent in the first 9 months of PTI’s government rule, ARY News reported on Tuesday.

According to the Statistical department, the trade deficit remained $33.45billion in July-March against $47billion in the same period, last year.

The exports were recorded at $17.21billion during the aforesaid period of the nine month, while the imports after witnessing a decrease by eight per cent were recorded at the level of $40.46billion as compared to $44.32billion, last year.


The Commerce Division said the economy is stabilising due to steps being taken by the government.

Last month, Pakistan’s imports had seen a significant decline of 19 percent, to $4.5 billion in January 2019, according to figures released by the statistics department.

According to the department, Pakistan had imported items worth $5.57 billion in January 2018, while the amount of imports reduced to $2.04 billion in Jan 2019.

The significant decline in imports helped the trade deficit to shrink by 31.73 percent to $2.46 billion in January 2019 as compared with $3.6 billion in the same month of the last year.

While the exports grew by only 4 percent to $2.04 billion during the month under review as compared to $1.96 billion in January 2018.



https://arynews.tv/en/pakistan-trade-deficit-shrinks-14pc-imports/

 

[BHarwana]

Pakistan's shift to export led growth is the real economic growth. Any country can increase it's growth by taking loans and importing everything from the world but for how long that growth is sustainable? No it is not sustainable and one has to make sure that growth is achieved by exports. If we follow the export led growth it will result in irreversible inflation due to continuous loans and huge paybacks each term but in export led growth it is a sustained state which results in saying good bye to lending institutions. It takes a lot of political will and strong leadership to make transition on this path but Pakistan's transition has started and with implementations of FTA and trade deals Pakistan will sustain a slow growth this year but will see huge boost in GDP and growth in coming years.

 

[maithil]

Just tiny 30% devaluation leads to bumper growth of 4% in exports. Asad Umar is a magician.He should be CEO of some company and not fired from there.

 

[Yaseen1]

i fear imports decline may include decline in import of defense equipment due to bad economic policies of govt which may have negative impact on our security and stability

 

[Mamadouso]

i fear imports decline may include decline in import of defense equipment due to bad economic policies of govt which may have negative impact on our security and stability

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Yes but the only other option is to keep on piling up even more debts to import defense equipment and then cover this with yet another IMF bailout in 2-3 years time.

Only with economic sovereignty do you get true sovereignty. Being at the mercy of IMF tentacles is not sustainable.

Unless someone cures the laziness in adding much needed ‘value added’ exports from the Pakistani industry this is going to be the norm going forward.

 

[Arulmozhi Varman]

This might not be the good for the long term growth. Developing countries trying to establish industrial base imports a lot- machinery, semi assembled kits etc etc. And only after that exports starts to build up consistently. If imports is decreasing without subsequent diversification of export products then its will be a problem for the future.

India for example is importing a lot and lot of machinery and stuffs for various investments. Now exports from those investment will start showing 10-15 years down the line.

 

[Affan-khan]

Just tiny 30% devaluation leads to bumper growth of 4% in exports. Asad Umar is a magician.He should be CEO of some company and not fired from there.

exporters are required to repatriate export proceeds within 90 days. The results will start coming from month of april. do check April 2019 export data

 

[Peaceful Civilian]

Good Work. We should do more to decrease imports on unnecessary items.

 

[Baby Leone]

Just tiny 30% devaluation leads to bumper growth of 4% in exports. Asad Umar is a magician.He should be CEO of some company and not fired from there.

even a country like Bangladesh without devaluation achieved around 12 % growth in exports during the same period.

Pakistan's shift to export led growth is the real economic growth. Any country can increase it's growth by taking loans and importing everything from the world but for how long that growth is sustainable? No it is not sustainable and one has to make sure that growth is achieved by exports. If we follow the export led growth it will result in irreversible inflation due to continuous loans and huge paybacks each term but in export led growth it is a sustained state which results in saying good bye to lending institutions. It takes a lot of political will and strong leadership to make transition on this path but Pakistan's transition has started and with implementations of FTA and trade deals Pakistan will sustain a slow growth this year but will see huge boost in GDP and growth in coming years.

lol hold your horses as its just decrease in imports not increase in exports

 

[BHarwana]

even a country like Bangladesh without devaluation achieved around 12 % growth in exports during the same period.

Okay but their import also grew at a much higher rate so you tell me is their deficit shrinking?

 

[Imran Khan]

they real person will be that whom turn pakistan from agriculture to industrial country

 

[Baby Leone]

Okay but their import also grew at a much higher rate so you tell me is their deficit shrinking?

problem is not imports but exports......

and we still are underdogs and no sign of any improvement unfortunately.

 

[BHarwana]

they real person will be that whom turn pakistan from agriculture to industrial country

Sorry but Nawaz tried it in past and ruined the economy and today we face the mess. We are a population of 200 million and we need to develop both sectors along side. You don't destroy your first business to develop a second even USA earns more from Agri than business

problem is not imports but exports......

and we still are underdogs and no sign of any improvement unfortunately.

we are not underdogs but we have a huge population our production is big but at the same time our consumption is also big. Now if Pakistan don't consumes a single grain of Rice and exports every grain then our trade deficit will turn into negative in a single year but problem is we also consume it our selves.

 

[Baby Leone]

Sorry but Nawaz tried it in past and ruined the economy and today we face the mess. We are a population of 200 million and we need to develop both sectors along side. You don't destroy your first business to develop a second even USA earns more from Agri than business



we are not underdogs but we have a huge population our production is big but at the same time our consumption is also big. Now if Pakistan don't consumes a single grain of Rice and exports every grain then our trade deficit will turn into negative in a single year but problem is we also consume it our selves.

so what? population didnt increase over night.....plus none of the export oriented countries with big exports achieved it through agriculture products.

 

[BHarwana]

so what? population didnt increase over night.....plus none of the export oriented countries with big exports achieved it through agriculture products.

The problem is we are already an agri based economy and Agriculture is already helping the economy and exports. For past 20+ years PML-N govt focused on business sector more and their delivery was not enough to reduce the deficit. Our current problem is to reduce the deficit so that we get out of our loan cycle and focusing on already established sector can increase that. Business sector in Pakistan can also reduce deficit but there is no need to make a shift instead we should carry both sectors along.