The country’s current account deficit has further declined in July-Oct 2015-16 shrinking deficit to only $532 million or 128 percent compared to negative $1.897 billion in the same period last year.
The current data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday said that in the month of October 2015 current account was in negative to $416 million, which stood in surplus $299 million in September 2015.
The reserves of the country stood at above $19.73 billion with the help of International Monetary Fund (IMF) till date. The reserves of the country stood at $8.619 billion in July-October 2015-16.
During this week, SBP’s Liquid FX Reserves decreased by $115 million to $14,589 million, compared to $14,704 million in the previous week. The decrease in reserves is mainly attributed to payments of $89 million on account on external debt servicing and other official payments, the SBP said.
The rupee had been depreciated by 5.32 percent in last four months against the greenback and stood at Rs 105.90 in the open current market and Rs 105.50 in the interbank market.
The country gross domestic product (GDP) has further risen to $98.958 billion in four months of current fiscal year compared to $90.229 billion stood in the same period last year. The trade deficit declined $5.928 billion owing to the declining export in July-October 2015-16. The export of the country stood at $7.190 billion against total import of $7.502 billion.
The total exports fell by 13.42 percent to $6.884 billion during the first four months (July-Oct) of 2015-16 from $7.951 billion in the same period last year. On a year-on-year basis, exports declined by over 11.38 percent from $1.729 billion in Oct 2015 compared to $1.951 billion in Oct 2014, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data revealed on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the imports fell by 12.76 percent to $14.582 billion during July-Oct this year from $16.714 billion in the same period last year. On a month-on-month basis, imports declined by 12.65 percent in Oct 2015. The import was recorded at $3.926 billion in Oct 2015 which stood at $3.485 billion in September 2015.
The country received total remittances of $6.507 billion in last four months compared to $6.184 billion in the same period 2014-15.
Services exports of the country declined to $1.995 billion in July-Oct this year compared to $2.194 billion in the same period last year. Meanwhile, the import of services in Pakistan stood at $2.359 billion compared to $3.096 billion in July-Oct 2014-15. The service balance deficit stood at negative $364 million in four month this year.
In first four months, the foreign direct investment is received $350.8 million, which is down by 24 percent compared to $462.5 million received in same period last year.
According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), total investment of the country stood at $711.6 million in July-Oct 2015-16 up 18.5 percent or $111.2 million compared to $600.4 million received in the same period last fiscal year.
Despite the efforts, the country’s economic managers have failed to improve economy but the analysts said the depreciation of rupee supported our exports in previous months, but it may give negative impact on the import in future. Last week, the government had imposed duties on the import of different kinds of textile items from India and other neighbouring countries to boost the local exports of the textile goods. Otherwise the imports of such items were hurting our textile exports, the APTMA official said.
Experts further said that the friendship with Russia will also boost their economy as it signed a LNG pipeline deal with Pakistan which would be completed in 2017.
