ISLAMABAD, Sept 19: The trade deficit soared by 176.27 per cent during the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year over the same months of the last year. Official data released here on Saturday by Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) indicated that in absolute term, the trade gap widened to $1,551.098m during the period under review as against $561.437m the same period last year.

The trade deficit during August 2005 rose by 187.47 per cent to $826.513m as against $287.516m the same month last year.

The statistics showed that the surge in the import of machinery, metal group and petroleum products had contributed towards this increase. It was expected that this trend would continue for the next four months because of zero rating of the five sectors.

Import bill increased by 44.27 per cent to $4.231 billion during July-August 2005-06 as against $2.932 billion during the same period of the last year. The volume of import bill recorded a growth of 51.48 per cent to $2.234 billion during August 2005 as against $1.475 billion over the same month of the last year.

Exports increased by 13.02 per cent to $2.680 billion during the period as against $2.371 billion the same period of the last year.

Exports increased by 18.56 per cent to $1.408 billion during August 2005 as against $1.187 billion over the same month of the last year. The increase was attributed to massive increase in export of primary commodities particularly surgical goods, sports goods etc.

However, the export of textile products registered a nominal increase in August 2005.