Pakistan trade deficit worsens by 30 percent during August

ISLAMABAD: Compared to July, Pakistan’s import bill has reached $4.5 billion in August registering an increase of 21 percent.
As the volume of imports has increased, the trade deficit has also worsened to $2.13 billion registering an increase of 30%.
According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, compared to July 2023, the exports registered an increase of 14.30% on Month-on-Month in August.
Meanwhile, compared to August 2022, exports decreased by 4.83% Year-on-Year and stood at $2.36 billion.
On MoM, exports in August 2023 increased to $2.36 billion compared to $2.07 billion in July 2023.
Meanwhile, the imports increased by 21.2% MoM in August 2023 and stood at $4.49 billion compared to imports which stood at $3.71 billion in July 2023.
On YoY, the imports registered a decrease of 26% and stood at $4.49 billion as compared to August 2022 in which imports stood at $6.1billion.
According to the data, exports decreased by 6.4% to $4.43 billion in 2MFY24, imports decreased by 25.7% to $8.19 billion in 2MFY24, and the trade deficit increased by 30% to $2.13 billion compared to July 2023.
On a cumulative basis, in 2MFY24, the trade deficit improved by 40.29% YoY to $3.76 billion as compared to $6.3bn in 2MFY23. – NNI