May 23, 2006	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 24, 1427

ISLAMABAD, May 22: The import bill of petroleum products rose by 63.13 per cent to $5.240 billion during the July-April period of the current fiscal as against $3.212 billion over same period last year.

Official figures available with Dawn indicated that with the increase in oil prices in international market, the share of oil imports in the total country’s import bill rose to 23 per cent during the period under review over last year.

In the total POL imports, the share of petroleum crude rose by 71.77 per cent to $3.081 billion during the period under review as against $1.793 billion over the corresponding period last year.

According to the statistics, compiled by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), the second biggest component of the import bill is of machinery group, which recorded a hefty growth of 32.81 per cent to $6.067 billion during the July-April period this year as against $4.568 billion over the same period of the last year.

Of these import of road motor vehicles registered a robust growth of 47.77 per cent in value during the period under review over the last year.

The import bill of agriculture implements increased by 111.80 per cent, electrical machinery and apparatus 42.37 per cent, power generating machinery 34.40 per cent, construction and mining machinery 35.30 per cent, office machines 3.10 per cent during the first 10 months this year over the same months of last year.

However, the import of textile machinery declined by 10.65 per cent during the period under review over the same period of the last year, which contradicted the government claim that the blanket exemption from duties would result into expansion in the textile sector.

The analysis further showed that the import of consumer goods, which rose by 35.51 per cent to $1.533 billion during the July-April period of the current fiscal year as against $1.131 billion during the same period of last year. Of the consumer goods — import of wheat rose 37.23pc, sugar 1001.11pc, dry fruits 26.33, milk products 59.32pc and pulses by 44.33pc during the July-April period of the current fiscal over the same period of last year.

However, tea imports declined by 1.64 per cent during the period under review over last year.

The import bill of metal group increased by 52.68pc to $1.482bn as against $0.970bn over the same period last year; agriculture and chemicals by 21.26pc to $3.563bn as against $2.938bn during the same period last year.