Petroleum Imports Fall 39.30% in March 2020

Petroleum imports have witnessed a decline of 39.30%, down to $668.329 million in March as compared to $1.10 million in February 2020, according to data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

On a year-on-year basis, the imports of the petroleum group during the month under review declined by 32.86% when compared to the imports of $995.851 in March 2019.

During the first three quarters of the current fiscal year, the overall import of the petroleum group witnessed a decline of 16.14% when compared to the corresponding period of last year.

The import bill during July-March (2019-20) was recorded at $8.90 billion as compared with the imports of $10.61 billion during July-March (2018-19), showing a decline of 16.1%.

The petroleum commodities that witnessed negative growth included petroleum products, the imports of which decreased by 14.24% $3.96 billion during the current year as compared with by $4.62 billion last year.

Likewise, the crude petroleum imports decreased from $3.379 billion last year to $2.45 billion during the current year, showing a decline of 27.42% whereas the imports of natural gas (liquefied) decreased by 6.96% by going down from $2.404 billion last year to $2.237 billion this year.

However, imports of petroleum gas (liquefied) during the period under review increased by 18.72% by growing from $207.145 million to $245.915 million. The imports of all other petroleum group products declined by 6.05% from $0.215 million to $0.202 million.

It is pertinent to mention here that the country’s overall trade deficit witnessed a significant reduction in the first three quarters of the current financial year and declined by 26.45% as compared to the corresponding period of last year.