Finance Minister Miftah Ismail Tuesday said that he expects the country’s import bill to be below $5 billion in July.
In a tweet, the finance minister said that Pakistan’s imports as of July 25 stood at $3.758 billion. He added that the country’s total exports are likely to be $4.824 billion. This would reflect a 37% decrease in imports from $7.722 billion in June 2022.
Imports in Pakistan as of July 25 were $3.758 billion. At this clip, our total imports are likely to be $4.824 billion. This number will be InshaAllah less than our exports plus remittance.
— Miftah Ismail (@MiftahIsmail) July 26, 2022
The minister further said that he expects imports to be less than the combined total of exports and remittances.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan’s trade deficit widened by 55.29 percent during the fiscal year 2021-22, and reached $48.259 billion compared to $31.076 billion during the same period of 2020-21, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data.
According to the PBS data, the trade deficit widened by 16.48 percent on a month-on-month basis from $4.151 billion in May 2022 to $4.835 billion in June 2022.
Imports increased by 13.94 percent on a month-on-month basis and stood at $7.722 billion in June 2022 compared to $6.777 billion in May 2022.
