January 29, 2006	Sunday	Zilhaj 28, 1426

ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: The import bill of petroleum products rose by 62.01 per cent during the first half (July-Dec) of the current fiscal, over the same period last year, thus putting more pressure on country’s foreign exchange reserves.

Official figures available with Dawn showed that in the absolute term, the import bill of petroleum products reached $3.033 billion during July-

Dec 2005 as against $1.872 billion during the same period last year.

The import of petroleum products recorded a growth of 44.51 per cent and petroleum crude 75.37 per cent during the period under review, over the same period last year.

With this increase in the oil import bill, trade deficit widened by 132.93 per cent to $5.581 billion during July-Dec 2005 as against $2.396 billion in the same period last year.

The second biggest component of trade deficit was the import of machinery group, which recorded a hefty growth of 57.67 per cent to $3.496 billion during the July-Dec period as against $2.217 billion during the same period last year.

Of these, import of road-motor vehicles registered a robust growth of 64.75 per cent in value over the last year.