June 11, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1424

ISLAMABAD, June 10: The import bill of edible oils ($538.20 million) shot up by 50.15 per cent, passing the half a billion dollar mark for the first time during the first 11 months of 2002-03.

The share of edible oils (4.87pc as against 3.82pc of corresponding period of previous year) in total import bill ($11061.73 million) continued to post rising trend in contrast to all other groups of imports, which registered decrease during the period under review, according to the trade data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics.

With the tax rate as high as 40 per cent, soyabean oil and palm oil constituted nearly 60 per cent of the Food group import bill ($905.65 million). As a result, food group was the only group in the imports portfolio that went up—8.19pc, up 0.14pc from the same period of 2001-02.

The total quantity of edible oils imported in the year by end of May was 11,86,172 tons, showing an increase of 7.38pc over the previous year.

The 82,000 ton increase was allowed to occur despite $202.28 per ton increase in the rate of soyabean oil and $122.01 per ton increase in that of palm oil.

This meant additional revenues for the government, in utter disregard to the fact that a foodstuff imported in the face of rising world market rates foredoomed the Pakistani consumers to pay inflated prices in the foreseeable future. With the huge stocks thus built up, a future decline in the import cost of edible oils is, therefore, unlikely to afford any relief to them.

The machinery group imports ($2517.21 million) continued to rise with a growth rate of 27.41pc. Nevertheless, its share in total imports, still high at 22.76pc though, registered 1.66pc decline.

In this group, the others, textile machinery and roadmotor vehicles claimed the largest chunk: $1716.9 million or 68.20pc of machinery group imports.

Textile machinery imports totalled $462.05 million, followed close behind by roadmotor vehicles with an import bill of $437.01 million. The two groups registered an increase of 27.41pc and 51.57pc, respectively. As regards Others in machinery group, they were up by 44.74pc with imports worth $817.84 million.

Power generating machinery including components of the thermal power plants cost $238.36 million — 27.33pc more than last year. The country also imported office machines including data processing equipment at a cost of $181.77 million, registering 10.02pc decline. Another major category in terms of high import bill is “electrical machinery & apparatus”. The country paid $189.73 million for it during the period under review, up67.34pc from previous year.

PETROLEUM PRODUCTS: This group, with imports worth $2866.06 million, relegated machinery group to the second position. It increased by 11.74pc from July-May, 2001-02. While the petroleum crude and other petroleum products showed a decline of 1.47pc and 8.63pc, respectively, in quantity, there was no let-up in their import cost.

This group constituted 25.91pc of total import bill, down 1.48pc from previous year.

The quantity of petroleum crude imported during the period under review was 6,329,474 tons against import bill of $1278.86 million, which translated into an increase of 16.64pc. The country also imported 7,909,533 tons of other petroleum products at $1587.20 million, an increase of 8.08pc.

The other major group in terms of import bill is “agricultural and other chemicals”. It accounted for 14.48pc of total import bill with imports worth $1933.42 million. During the same period of previous year, its share in total import bill was 17.88pc.

In this group, a total of 1,170,505 tons of chemical fertilizers were imported at a cost of $214.62 million. Analysis of related figures shows a sharp deterioration in terms of trade. While the quantity of their imports increased by 5.65pc, their import cost registered a rise of 32.65pc.