Trade deficit in July-August 2008 widened to $3.522 billion with $7.011 billion imports against $3.489 billion exports. Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) trade figures released here on Wednesday showed that trade deficit during first two months of the current fiscal year was 47.67 percent higher over the same period of last year.
Trade deficit was $2.385 billion in the two months of 2007 which increased to $3.522 billion in the first two months of current fiscal year. Monthly data analysis showed $3.461 billion imports in August against exports of $1.584 billion, registering a deficit of $1.877 billion.
Running high trade deficit through imports twice the total exports could be a grave challenge for the government that requires a strategy to enhance exports and slashing imports. There was a decline of 16.86 percent in exports in August 2008 over the previous month, the exports going down from $1.905 billion in July 2008 to $1.584 billion in August 2008. The decline in imports, 2.48 percent, during the same period was very nominal as compared to decline in exports.
The exports during the first two of the current fiscal year increased by 8.85 percent over the same period of last year, but imports increased by 31.77 percent. According to official figures, export of goods went up marginally to total of $3.489 billion against $2.936 billion of last year. But rise in imports was phenomenal to $7.011 billion against $5.321 billion of last year.