ISLAMABAD: The country’s oil, food and transport import bill rose nearly 29 per cent year-on-year to $16.2 billion in the first eight months of this fiscal year owing to an increase in global prices of crude and grains.

The amount constitutes one third of the total merchandise imports for the period.

One change was observed in the import bill that transport category was replaced by the machinery during the past few months.

The trade deficit is widening as the overall import bill of the country has been on the rise since the start of 2017-18.

Official figures released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed that the petroleum imports increased 34.9pc year-on-year to $9.02bn in the July-Feb period.

A 58.3pc growth was recorded in import of crude oil year-on-year to $2.5bn. But in terms of quantity, a growth of 28.8pc was posted year-on-year to 6.8 million tonnes, indicating that a large share of the increase is on account of higher prices.

Imports of petroleum products went up 17.2pc to $4.9bn in the eight-month period. The petroleum products recorded a nearly 3.1pc growth in quantity year-on-year to 10.8m tonnes.

In the petroleum group, the import bill of liquefied natural gas (LNG) surged 87.1pc year-on-year to $1.4bn. While that of petroleum gas liquefied recorded growth of 27.2pc year-on-year to $208.5m.

The second-biggest component in the import bill was food commodities whose import rose 6.3pc year-on-year to $4.3bn in the first eight months of this fiscal year. The increase is due mainly to massive imports of palm oil registering a 13.5pc year-on-year rise to $1.4bn in value. In terms of quantity, an increase of 8.8pc year-on-year was also recorded to 1.8m tonnes.

The second-biggest single product in food import bill is tea, which went up by 10.2pc year-on-year to $398.1m. However, a 5.8pc decline was recorded in terms of quantity. The import of ‘other’ food items went up 18pc year-on-year to $1.6bn.

The import of milk products went up by 1.5pc to $168.2m year-on-year. The import of soyabean oil went up 84.6pc to $107.5m. Import of spices rose 19.6pc year-on-year to $106.6m and a rise of 6.2pc in import of sugar was recorded year-on-year to $3.6m.

The import of pulses dropped by 41pc year-on-year to $353.3m due to better yield in domestic market. The import of dry fruits fell 16.8pc year-on-year to $93.6m owing to regulatory duties imposed on imports of various types of dry fruits especially from Afghanistan.

The third biggest component of import bill is of transport category which went up 46.6pc to $2.9bn from $1.98bn over the corresponding period of last year.

In this category, the import of road motor vehicle increased by 19.7pc to $1.8bn during the period under review as against $1.6bn over the corresponding period of last year.

The one category which started a declining trend is of machinery. The overall machinery group declined by 3.3pc to $7.5bn as against $7.8bn over the corresponding period of last year.

In this category, the only area which posted a robust growth was that of mobile and telecom equipment imports which went up by 13.7pc to $1bn from $0.88bn over the corresponding period of last year.

However, the import of construction and mining machinery dropped by 29pc, office machinery 0.15pc and power generating machinery 18.7pc, respectively.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2018