Pakistan’s Trade deficit blows up to $2.968 billion in March

Pakistan’s trade deficit has increased by 97.6 percent in March, reaching $2.968 billion from $1.502bn as compared to the same month last year, according to the data shared by the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday.

The trade deficit increased 17.77pc on a monthly basis.

The trade gap has been expanding since Dec 2020. In February, it swelled by 23.93pc to $2.52bn as against $2.03bn over the corresponding month of last year.

Commerce Advisor Abdul Razak Dawood justifies the increase in the import bill on Twitter. He claimed that imports grew to $5,313 million in March due to the increase in the imports of petroleum, wheat, soybean, machinery, raw material & chemicals, mobiles, fertilizers, tyres, and antibiotics, and vaccines.

This is also the first time since 2011 that exports have crossed the $ 2 billion mark for six consecutive months. The export growth of 29.3% over March 2020 should not be considered as it is misleading since there was a lockdown last year.

— Abdul Razak Dawood (@razak_dawood) April 1, 2021

The trade deficit in the nine months expanded to $21.241bn from $17.352bn over the corresponding months of last year, causing an increase of 22.4pc. The hike in trade deficit is mainly led by higher growth in imports with lower growth in exports in March 2021.