KARACHI : July 27, 2022. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) released the report of financial year 2021-22 on Wednesday which suggested huge jump in its import of petroleum products in the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2022.
According to SBP, Pakistan’s import of petroleum products jumped-up to 18.74 billion in the last fiscal year which shows unprecedented surge in the expenditure over the fiscal year 2020-21.
Pakistan petroleum products import ranged between $ 10 to $ 12 billion but it surged to $ 18.74 billion in 2021-22, showing increase by over 30 percent .
Pakistan is in serious cash problem due to rising petroleum products prices in the global market for the last couple of years.
With such a high import bill of petroleum products in 2021-22, Pakistan is facing serious economic crisis.
Pakistan’s imports in fiscal year 2021-22 stood at $ 72 billion against tis total exports of only $ 31 billion in the last fiscal year.
This widened Pakistan trade deficit to $ 39.59 billion. Such a huge trade deficit shows that Pakistan was recklessly importing huge quantities of different items .
Although ,Shahbaz Sharif’s government is making repeated announcement to cut down unnecessary imports to close down trade deficit and save much needed forex exchange but in practical terms its doing nothing to stop inflows of unnecessary imports. Imports of 7.5 billion in June 2022 is its ample proof.
Remittances remained all time high at $ 31 billion in the last fiscal year. It’s a good sign that Pakistan’s remittances are showing robust increase despite recession in the global market .
Other main items which pushed up Pakistan’s import bill all time high in 2021-22 included cotton ( $ 2.28), food items like lentals, cerelac etc ( $ 7.93 billion). This much volume of import of food items should be a worry for the decision-makers .
Pakistan is an agriculture country and it can not meet its domestic demand of food related items like lentals, cerelac etc.
Pakistan also spent $ 3.6 billion on import of edible oil. It spent $ 1.74 on import of mobiles. Machinery import cost Pakistan $ 9.62 billion in 2021-22. Agriculture machinery and related products cost Pakistan $ 10.65 billion in the last fiscal year and import of scrap ate up $ 4.95 billion in the last fiscal year .
