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ISLAMABAD, March 11: The imports of machinery group, including roadmotor vehicles, textile machinery, etc., swelled by 36.97 per cent during the first eight months of 2002-03, raising its share in the import bill by nearly three percentage points to 22.52 per cent over the corresponding period of previous year.
The total import bill of Pakistan during the period July- February 2002-03 stood at $7.78 billion, thus depicting a growth rate of 19.94 per cent as compared to the same period of 2001-02.
Imports of various categories of items in this group mounted to $1.74 billion as against $1.27bn in the same period of 2001-02. Major imports in this group were textile machinery ($319.78m), roadmotor vehicles ($302.63 million), denoting increases of 9.37% and 58.93%, respectively.
What should particularly worry the policymakers is the leap- frogging of imports of power generating machinery. Presumably attributable to the maintenance spares of the private thermal power projects, their imports swelled by 67.78% to $176.11 million, that is, nearly $66 million more than during previous year.
The other items whose imports showed rising trend were: Electric machinery & apparatus ($136.57m); aircraft, ship and boats ($47.53m); and agricultural machinery & implements ($20.615m). Their imports spiralled by 76.69%, 20.94% and 167.48%, respectively.
The country also spent $131.54 million on the import of office machinery, including computers. This is 4.71% less than the import bill for corresponding period of previous year.
A major chunk of the machinery group import bill was represented by others. These amounted to $554.65 million — 51.39% more than in the same period of previous year.
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS: This is the largest category in terms of the size of import bill. Standing at $2.04 billion, these constituted 26.52% over overall import bill, that is, 2.80% more than during previous year.
Last year, however, the petroleum products import bill had amounted to $1.73 billion — nearly $270 million or 18.46% more than during previous year.
Within this group, the imports of petroleum crude surged by 13.24% to stand at $915.45 million. The quantity of crude imported during the 8-month period under review was 46,11,985 tons — 5.04% less than in previous year.
As a fraction of overall import bill, the share of crude oil is calculated at 11.80%, as against 12.50% during July-February 2001-02.
AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER CHEMICALS GROUP: e import bill on account of this third biggest category mounted to $1.35 billion, up 11.09% from previous year.
This group includes chemical fertilizer of which the country imported over one million tons during the period under review. This is 2.06% more than in previous year but, due to rising prices, the import bill ($1.96.67 million) showed an increase of over 29%.
The country also paid a hefty bill of $43.33 million on import of insecticides, albeit 16.30% less than in previous year.
The figures for metals and miscellaneous groups indicate some increase in industrial activity, as these relate to the industrial raw materials and intermediate inputs. Their imports went up by 14.73% to $323.77m and by 12.97% to $200.88m, respectively.
The import bill of others moved up to $1.28 billion, denoting an increase of 13.49% over previous year.
FOOD GROUP: The imports of foodstuffs also surged by 20.90%. Their import bill stood at $6.46 million — $112 million or 20.90% more than in previous year. The star performer in this group remains the edible oils.
The quantity of edible oils (mainly palm oil) imported during the period under review was 8,17,861 tons — 43,960 tons more than the corresponding period of previous year. Interestingly, even 36.22% hike in the import price of palm oil to $434.81 per ton (as against previous year $319.19 per ton) failed to deter importers from importing increased quantities.
At nearly $357.5 million, their share in total food group import bill jumped still further to 55.33% as against 44.92% of previous year.
In absolute terms, the country spent $117.42 million of 48.91% more on their import than during previous year.
