ISLAMABAD: Exports dipped 7.65 per cent during the second month of the current fiscal year, showed data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on Friday.

The export proceeds fell to $1.85 billion in August as against $2.01bn over the corresponding month of last year. However, the cumulative export proceeds witnessed an uptick of 2.79pc to $3.75bn in July-August period of 2019-20 over $3.65bn in the corresponding period last year.

Encouragingly, during July exports grew by 15.65pc on a year-on-year basis.

Contrary to this, the imports in July-August clocked in at $7.67bn, down 21.41pc from $9.76bn over corresponding period last year. The decline is significantly steeper as the value of imported goods in August dipped by 26.26pc to $3.65bn as against $4.96bn over the corresponding month last year.

The country’s trade deficit shrank by 35.86 per cent to $3.92 billion in July-August from $6.11bn over the corresponding months last year. On a monthly basis, the trade deficit decelerated by a hefty margin of 38.98pc to $1.79bn in August as against $2.94bn over the corresponding month last year.

The government has set a target to bring down annual trade gap to $27.476bn by June 2020.

The decline came on the back of government’s interventions to arrest the rising import bill even though export proceeds posted a mixed trend during the same period.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2019