Import of food and petroleum products still growing

KARACHI: The import curbing policies have started yielding results as the imports decline by 1.52 percent during the first eight months of current fiscal year providing a sigh of relief for the economic managers.All the import categories recorded negative trends except for petroleum and food group. The decreasing trend in the imports is an encouraging sign for the country’ s external trade sector, which has been experiencing high import growth in the last several years putting pressure on the foreign exchange reserves and dampening Rupees value.. The slowdown in growth of imports is a respite for the country at this critical juncture when Pakistan is attempting to buildup its forex reserves through various channels including loans from IMF. Though the slowdown in the import growth started few months back, the clear picture surfaced in February when the negative growth was recorded in the various categories except for petroleum and food, which are still registering increase in import albeit the sharp reduction in their global prices after hitting record levels previous years.

The import of petroleum products rose by 9.16 percent to $6.921 billion during the first eight months of current financial year over $6.340 billion in the corresponding period of previous year. The import of petroleum manufactured was up by almost 15 percent and crude imports grew by 2.36 percent during this period.