November 01, 2006	Wednesday	Shawwal 8, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The country’s import bill rose by 13.38 per cent to $7.428 billion during the first quarter (July-Sept) of 2006-07 as compared to $6.551 billion the same period last year owing to rising imports of petroleum products, automobile and mobile phones.

Official figures released by Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) here on Tuesday indicated that the overall import bill did not record that much growth in comparison to last year following massive decline in imports of food items, machinery and agriculture implements.

The statistics showed that the import bill of petroleum products alone rose by 35.35 per cent to $2.172 billion during the quarter as against $1.605 billion the same period last year.

In total POL imports, the share of petroleum crude rose by 2.28 per cent to $966.997 million as against $945.402 million corresponding period last year.

In the telecom sector, the import of mobile phones increased by 57.3 per cent to $198.956 million during July-Sept as against $126.466 million the same quarter last year.

However, the import of other apparatus of telecom declined by 23.09pc to $231.556 million as against $304.658 million the same period last year.

The second biggest component of the import bill in value was machinery group. However, it declined 4.31 per cent during July-Sept 2006 over last year mainly due to a 30.78 per cent negative growth in import of textile machinery followed by 31.36pc fall in agriculture machinery and implements and 21.58pc in other machinery.

However, the import of construction machinery rose by 25.41 per cent and electrical machinery and apparatus by 30.55 per cent, power generating machinery by 47.91 per cent and office machinery by 4.18 per cent.

The import of transportation group both in CBU and CKD/SKD increased by 7.84pc to $393.288 million during the quarter as against $364.680 million the same period last year.

Food items import declined by 23.30 per cent to $533.369 million during July-Sept 2006 as against $695.432 million in the corresponding period last year. The import of milk products declined by 6.83 per cent, dry fruits by 27.32pc, sugar by 25.71pc, palm oil by 25.38pc, tea by 0.04pc and wheat by 43.71 per cent.

The import of metal groups fell 17.86 per cent during the quarter under review. In this group, gold imports dipped by 24.65pc, iron and steel scrap by 45.24 per cent and iron and steel by 20.87pc.

The agriculture and other chemical group also registered 23.33 per cent decline during the quarter over last year. The import of fertiliser fell by 46.02 per cent, insecticides by 40.45 per cent, plastic materials by 10.50 per cent and medicinal products by 21.91 per cent.