ISLAMABAD: The combined import bill of food, oil and machinery ballooned to a record $21.097 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, a 30 per cent increase over the last year, despite stable prices of oil and grains on the international market.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the share of the three groups edged up to 55 per cent in the total import bill during the period from 50pc a year ago. Pakistan’s overall imports stood at $38.5bn in the nine-month period.

Petroleum imports increased 27.5pc year-on-year to $7.75bn in the July-March period. In March, petroleum imports skyrocketed 92pc to $1.07bn.

A breakdown shows that imports of petroleum products went up by 29pc to $4.85bn while those of petroleum crude were almost flat at $1.84bn in July-March.

The import bill of liquefied natural gas surged by 144pc and that of liquefied petroleum gas by 34pc.

A steep increase in the import of petroleum products indicates that local refineries are not operating at full capacity.

The second-biggest component in the import bill was of machinery imports which went up by 42pc to $8.82bn during the period under review from $6.21bn a year ago. In March, machinery imports jumped 39pc year-on-year to $1.01bn.

The growth was mainly driven by power generating machinery. Its import grew by 76.5pc year-on-year to $2.37bn, followed by electrical machinery and appliances whose imports rose by 25.7pc to $1.03bn and other machinery by 53pc to $2.54bn.

The import bill of office machinery went up by 60pc year-on-year, textile machinery by 20.8pc, construction machinery 66.8pc and agriculture machinery 35.8pc. However, the import bill of the telecom sector fell 1.7pc to $1.028bn.

Mobile phone imports dropped, but imports of other apparatus went up by around 7pc during the period under review.

The third-biggest component was food commodities whose imports rose 15pc year-on-year to $4.53bn.

The import bill of food items stood at $1.52bn, followed by $1.38bn of palm oil, $721.84m of pulses, $411.4 million of tea, $130m of dry fruit and nuts and $102m of spices.

Imports of soya bean oil and milk products also grew during the period under review.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2017