KARACHI: The current account has continued its winning streak for the 5th month and posted a surplus of $447 million in November 2020.
The strong balance of payment position is mainly due to higher inflows of workers' remittances, experts said.
In the first five months of FY21, current account stands at $1,640 million (surplus) as compared to deficit of $1,745 million during the same period last year.
During November 2020, current account surplus reached at $447 million relative to deficit of $326 million on account of remittance of $2,339 million. However, trade deficit on goods increased by 17.8 percent on year-on-year basis due to increase in imports by 10.7 percent on YoY.
On cumulative basis, current account continued its momentum of surplus since July 2020 and reached at $1,640 million in the five months of FY21 compared to deficit of $1,745 million during the same period last year.
To note, the last yearly current account surplus of $214 million recorded in FY11.
The significant improvement in balance of payment is on the back of strong growth in remittances which increased by 26.9 percent on YoY to $11,770 million, Muhammad Arsalan an analyst at Summit Capital said. The prevailing higher remittances are due to increasing compliance on illegal means and less traveling, he added.
On the other hand, exports declined by 7.1 percent on YoY to $9,550 million as food exports dropped by 12.4 percent on YoY. Under food group, rice exports in volumetric terms deteriorated by 17.7 percent to 1.3 million tons. On the other hand, imports also witnessed slight dip of 1.0 percent on YoY to $18,163 million. In volumetric terms imports of refined and crude oil surged by 54.4 percent on YoY and 14.8 percent on YoY respectively. However, the lower oil prices kept the imports at lower side, he said.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
Comments
Comments are closed.