Trade deficit falls by 29pc in July ByMonitoring Report - August 17, 2019064 Listen to Article

[Shahzaz ud din]

Trade deficit falls by 29pc in July
By
Monitoring Report
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August 17, 2019
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The trade deficit has contracted by 29 percent in the first month of this fiscal year, with the government claiming this fall represents their move to curtail all non-essential luxury items.

The trade deficit decreased 28.84pc to $2.27 billion in July, from $3.19bn over the corresponding month of last year.

The government has projected to reduce the annual trade gap to $27.476 billion by June 2020.

There had also bee a steep fall in 2018-19, with the deficit falling to $31.82bn from $37.58bn, posting a decline of 15.33pc. While the exports that year had given mixed numbers as they have this year, the contraction was achieved through a general shrinking of the import bill.

The decline in imports is mainly due to the imposition of regulatory duties on luxury items and automobiles.

Moreover, a ban on import of furnace oil was also placed by the government last year, in addition to a number of policy interventions.

 

[mourning sage]

Brilliant! IK's economic policies already bearing results. We should have done this long time ago.

Still, better late than never. The next logical step now is for exports to go up. For that to happen though, the industrial infrastructure, so meticulously destroyed by PPP and N will have to be re-established. That, unfortunately, will take time.

 

[Vapnope]

Reducing the imports is a good step however exports should be increased as well. I personally believe that our trade with countries should be under a policy that trade deficit should not be more than 10%. Sectors like rice, meat and fruits need better infrastructure to facilitate export. 40% of our vegetables are lost due to absence of cold chain in the country.