June 22, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 21: The country’s oil import bill is likely to touch $13 billion during the current financial year as it has already ballooned to highest ever level during the July-May period.

The oil import bill during the first 11 months of the current fiscal year went up by 52.21 per cent to reach $10.094 billion from $6.631 billion during the same period last year.

The oil import accounts for 28 per cent of total imports as against 23 per cent of last year but also contributed to 40 per cent in the overall import growth.

The surge in import of oil has been the result of an extraordinary increase in the prices of POL products, as well as substantial increase in its quantity.

Apart from price factor, the quantity of oil imports has also contributed to an extraordinary surge in imports.

The rise in the quantity of petroleum products was on account of higher demand of furnace oil for power generation as supply of gas to power sector has been relatively less this fiscal year.

Official figures, compiled by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), released on Saturday showed that within petroleum group (oil), both product and crude posted an increase of 59.93 per cent and 43.93 per cent, respectively in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year.

Import bill of petroleum products reached $5.486 billion during the July-May period of the current fiscal year as against $3.430 billion over last year, and the import bill of petroleum crude hiked to $4.608 billion during the period under review from $3.201 billion over last year.

This showed that maximum reserves were utilised for import of the value-added products manufactured from petroleum. However, the crude oil import bill witnessed an unexpected increase following the crossing of oil prices over $100 per barrel.

The statistics showed that machinery was the second group after petroleum, whose import stood at $6.586 billion in July-May this year, up by 8.09 per cent from $6.093 billion last year.

This growth in the import bill of machinery group was the outcome of marginal increase in import of power generating machinery, which increased by 46.42pc, construction machinery 11.86pc, electrical machinery 13.81pc.

The single largest contributor in the machinery import bill was the telecom sector, which grew by 1.64pc to $2.068 billion during the period under review as against $2.03 billion over last year.

However, textile machinery imports declined by 12.11pc during the period under review over last year. The import bill of agriculture and other chemicals was up by 32.94pc to $5.259 billion during the first 11 months of the current fiscal year as against $3.956 billion over the same period last year.

This growth in the import bill is owing to 138.21pc increase in the import bill of fertiliser, followed by 25.91pc in medicinal products and plastic material 12.7pc during the period under review.

The import of food products reached $3.867 billion in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year as against $2.556 billion over the same period last year. This growth was mainly due to import of wheat and palm oil during the period under review to meet the local shortage.

With this unexpected increase in imports of these commodities, the total import bill reached to $35.943 billion during the 11 months of the current fiscal year against $27.743 billion during the same period last year, indicating an increase of 29.56pc.