KARACHI, June 3: The mysterious column of ‘others’ in the import list has grown so big that the amount mentioned in it becomes equal to trade deficit of the country.

The import being made under the head of ‘others’ is over 92 per cent of the total trade deficit and 38 per cent of the total import bill of the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.

The trade deficit, which reached $9.428bn during July-April 2005-06, has been a main source of concerns for the government.

Economists and analysts have been analysing the import bills through the cost of oil import, machinery and food imports. Surprisingly, the items that are not considered for analysis is the column of others mentioned thrice in the import lists.

No details are provided either by the Federal Bureau of Statistics or the State Bank which used to get data from the FBS. What are being imported under the column of others is not mentioned but the size of amount reached $8.730 billion.

This huge unexplained import bill is 92.6 per cent of the total trade deficit during the first 10 months of the fiscal year 2005-06. The haunting trade deficit put serious threat to the balance of payment position of the country. The deficit would be managed through financing in terms of foreign investments, privatisation proceeds and remittances sent by overseas Pakistanis.

The country’s import bill rose to $22.951 billion in the first 10 months and the biggest among all was the import bill under the head of ‘others’. This bill is 38 per cent of total imports.

“We do not get details of imports under the head of others,” said a State Bank official. “I believe that the details come after four or five months.”

The SBP publishes quarterly reports and analyses of the economy without details about 38 per cent of imports.

“The amount is so huge and is just equal to trade deficits and it should be taken seriously,” said an analyst. Most of the brokerage houses have no idea about what type of the things coming under the head of others. However, they analyse and prepare their reports on basis of only 34 major items that makes only 62 per cent of total imports.

“Ignoring 38 per cent of the total import bill while analysing the trade deficit is not justified,” said the analyst, adding that it was government’s responsibility to make arrangement for complete details.

The government has been assuring that the import bill is soaring because of high oil import bill and huge investment of the textile industry for the import of machinery. But the highest import under the head of machinery was motor vehicles which were almost double than the textile machinery.

The import of road motor vehicles was of $1,223 million, while the import of textile machinery was of $693 million. The import under the head of ‘others’, in the machinery group alone consumed $2,750 million.