DHAKA – Bangladesh’s overall trade deficit in the first half of the current fiscal year (July 2010- June 2011) widened to over $3.447 billion, official statistics showed on Tuesday.
Statistics of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) showed that the country exported $10.294 billion of goods while it imported items worth $13.741 billion in the July-December period. The overall trade deficit in the same period of the previous fiscal year (July 2009-June 2010) was nearly $2.753 billion when Bangladesh’s export earning and import payment stood at $7.295 billion and $10.048 billion respectively, the BB data showed.
In the first half of the current fiscal year, it showed, Bangladesh’s export and import earnings surged 41.11 percent and 42.18 percent respectively compared to the same period a year earlier. Bangladesh’s trade deficit in the last fiscal year ballooned nearly 10 percent year on year to over $5 billion as import rebounded since April after months of slump in the wake of the global economic recession.
