Pakistan's trade deficit in the services sector surged by $4.223 billion during eight months of the current fiscal year showing 40.35 percent increase over last year's $3.009 billion. According to the figures released by Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), exports were $2.213 billion during July-February against $6.347 billion imports, depicting $4.223 billion deficit.
This shows that Pakistan's imports in services increased significantly compared to exports during, going up from $5.547 billion to $6.347 billion, while exports declined from $2.538 billion to $2.213 billion for the same period.
Further analysis of the data showed that exports picked up during February over the last month by 127 percent, going up from $223.886 million in January to $508.951 million in February. The imports also declined by 14.65 per cent from $894.771 million in January to $765.480 million in February. Total imports in February were of $765.480 million against exports of $508.951 million, showing a deficit of $256.529 million.
The data for the period under review showed an increase of 99.65 percent in exports in February 2008 over the same period last year, going up from $254.919 million in February 2007 to $508.951 million in February 2008. A surge of 20.93 percent was recorded in imports during the same period, up from $632.973 million to $765.480 million which helped in reducing balance of trade by 32.14 per cent. According to analysts, the negative growth in exports of services was owing to many reasons, including political instability.
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