Pakistan's trade deficit touches upto $4 bln mark

Islamabad, Nov 15 (UNI) Pakistan's trade deficit has risen to over four billion dollars in the quarter July-October 2006, registering 17.9 per cent increase over the deficit of 3.4 billion dollars during the corresponding period last year.

The trend in export of goods too remained just 1.34 per cent, much lower than the expectations of the government during the first four months of the current fiscal 2006-07 against the corresponding period of the previous year.

The Nation quoted Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan as saying that the exports were not falling, but the rate of growth in exports had declined contrary to their expectations.

He attributed the widening of trade gap to a number of reasons, including the inability of overall economic policies.

''It is mainly due to the overall economic policies that the trade deficit has increased,'' he said, adding that other causes to overcome the trend are also being looked into.

The policy makers are now at crossroads over the ever increasing trade gap as the downward trend in exports is also perturbing them besides the already much higher inflows of imports into the country.

According to the provisional trade data, exports have reached at 5.55 billion dollars during July-October 2006, registering a growth of 1.34 per cent over the exports of 5.48 billion dollars during the same period last year.

The imports rose to 9.56 billion dollars in the said period of the current fiscal, recording an increase of 7.69 per cent over 8.87 billion dollars over the corresponding period last year.

Keeping in view this uncertain situation on trade side, the trade and commerce planners are worried to get the export target of 18.6 billion dollars and control the upward trend in the trade deficit.

The negative trend in the exports is continued since September.

The exports reached at 1.28 billion dollars in October 2006, recording a negative growth of 3.24 per cent over 1.33 billion dollars as compared to October 2005.

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