August 30, 2007	Thursday	Sha’aban 16, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Aug 29: Country’s import bill of petroleum products has declined by 6.33 per cent to $686.615 million in July as against $732.983 million over the same month last year.

Official figures released here on Wednesday by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) showed that decline in import bill of oil was recorded mainly due to decrease in import of petroleum products over last year.

With this decline in oil import bill, overall growth in imports also decreased to 4.67 per cent as it stood at $2.574 billion during the month as against $2.459 billion over the same month last year.

The average per month growth in import bill during 2006-07 was around nine per cent. This decline in import bill has resulted in trade surplus during the first month of the current fiscal. Analysts say if the trend continues for next few months, it is likely that this year trade deficit will remain within the double digit. During the last two years, the trade deficit crossed the $12 billion mark.

The import bill of petroleum crude increased by 9.14 per cent to $367.431 million in July 2007 as against $336.646 million over the same month last year. However, the import of products manufactured from petroleum declined by 19.47 per cent to $319.184 million during the period under review as against $396.337 million over the same month last year.

Last year, the import bill of petroleum crude recorded a decline as compared to the product during the whole year of 2006-07. But results in the start of the year showed an opposite trend during the current fiscal year.

The second biggest component of the import bill in value was the machinery group. However, its imports increased by 4.54 per cent in July 2007 to $533.314 million as against $510.154 million over the same month last year.

The import bill of machinery mainly pushed by an increase of 15.02 per cent in power generating machinery, construction machinery 69 per cent, construction machinery 43.75 per cent and agriculture machinery 83.26 per cent.

However, textile machinery declined by more than 15.94 per cent, office machinery 10.37 per cent during the month under review as against the same month last year.

In the telecom sector, the import of mobile phones increased by 17.2 per cent. However, import of other apparatuses declined by 18.11 per cent during the first month of the current fiscal over the same month last year.