ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: Pakistan’s food and oil import bill ballooned to a record $8.099 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year, a 38.5 per cent increase over last year’s $5.847 billion, despite a decline in prices of oil and foodgrains in the international market.

The crude price dipped by more than 70 per cent to under $40 per barrel recently, after hitting an all-time high of over $146 in July last year, but Pakistan’s oil import bill still rose because of a massive depreciation of rupee.

With the increased cost of imports of food and oil, the share of these products edged up to 42.3 per cent of the total import bill during the July-December period of the current fiscal year from 34.4 per cent last year, putting more pressure on the country’s balance of payment.

Official figures compiled by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) show that the import value of oil increased to $5.881 billion in July-Dec from $4.242 billion over the same period last year, an increase of 38.62 per cent.Though the overall oil bill increased but a drop of 14.38 per cent was noticed in December last year, the third straight monthly decline.

The figures show that the reduction in oil import bill in December followed steep cuts in the import of petroleum products which may be attributed to a dip in demand because of economic slowdown. However, the crude import edged up by 104 per cent during the months under review.

The second biggest component in the import bill was food commodities which reached $2.218 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year, an increase of 38.19 per cent over last year’s $1.605 billion.

This increase has been attributed to massive import of wheat worth $734.015 million, followed by $721.267 million of palm oil and $427.649 million of other goods.

The depreciation of rupee and imposition of additional customs duty have lowered the imports only of the transport group by more than 46.35 per cent. This decline has been recorded across the board in both complete built units (CBU) and CKD/SKD vehicles.

Another sector which recorded a decline in import bill because of the government measures was telecommunication (mobile phones and machinery). In this sector, the value of import declined by 45 per cent.

A trend of increase in the import bill of machinery and agricultural products was witnessed during the months under review. The machinery import was up by 6.19 per cent to $3.449 billion against last year’s $3.248 billion.

The machinery import bill was up because of 108 per cent increase in the import cost of power generating machinery followed by 51.61 per cent in construction machinery and 22.89 per cent in electrical machinery.

Similarly, the import bill of agriculture sector was up by 3.90 per cent to $2.838 billion against $2.731 billion last year.