ISLAMABAD: Petroleum group imports witnessed a negative growth of 44.89 percent during the first month (July) of the current fiscal year 2023-24 on a year-on-year basis and stood at $791.434 million when compared to $1.436 billion in July 2022, says the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

The data of exports and imports released by the PBS revealed that petroleum group imports in July 2023 remained at $791.434million compared to $1.632 billion in June and registered 51.51 percent decline on month-on-month (MoM).

Petroleum products imports witnessed 51.02 per cent negative growth during July 2023 and remained at $356.590 million compared to $728.080 million in July 2022. On a MoM basis, it registered 59.49 per cent negative growth when compared to $880.250 million in June 2023.

The overall imports during July 2023 were $3.705 billion (provisional) as compared to $4.219 billion in June 2023 showing a decrease of 12.18per cent and by 25.62per cent as compared to $4.981 billion in July 2022.

Pakistan’s trade deficit narrowed by 40.06 per cent to $1.637 billion during July 2023 as compared to $2.731 billion during July 2022.

The main commodities of imports during July 2023 were petroleum products (Rs100,204 million), natural gas, liquefied (Rs95,431 million), palm oil (Rs78,384 million), plastic materials (Rs57,396 million), electric machinery and apparatus (Rs48,773 million), iron and steel (Rs41,580 million), medicinal products (Rs26,260 million), iron and steel scrap (Rs24,697 million), pulses (leguminous vegetables) (Rs24,266 million), and motor cars (CKD/SKD) (Rs19,841 million).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023