ISLAMABAD, Aug 28: The import bill of petroleum products, food items and vehicles witnessed a hefty growth during the first month of the fiscal year 2006-07 over the same month last year, thus putting pressure on the foreign exchange reserves.

The total import bill touched $2.460 billion in July 2006 as against $1.996 billion in the same month last year, indicating an increase of 23.25 per cent.

Official figures released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) here on Monday showed the import bill of petroleum products alone rose by 43.73 per cent to $725.340 million during the first month of the current fiscal as against $504.669 million in the same month last year.

In total POL imports, the share of petroleum crude rose by 23.66 per cent to $336.646 million during the month under review as against $272.237 million in the corresponding month last year.

Like last year, the import bill of oil in the current year would be the leading contributor to the highest trade deficit due to persistent rise in the oil prices in the international market.

According to the FBS, the second biggest component of the import bill in value, was machinery group. However, it declined 2.51 per cent during July, 2006 over the last year.

The decline in this group was mainly due to 17.31 per cent negative growth in import of textile machinery followed by 6.93 per cent decline in import of office machinery. However, the import of construction machinery rose by 84.51 per cent and electrical machinery and apparatus by 44.52 per cent, respectively.

Food items import rose by 42.26 per cent to $189.062 million during July, 2006 as against $132.900 million over the corresponding month last year. Of these import of sugar rose by 289.45 per cent, pulses 103.22 per cent, dry fruits 62 per cent.

The import of vehicles in both CBU/CKD condition also witnessed growth during the first month of the current fiscal. The import of vehicles increased by 2.72 per cent.

Among the CBU group, import of buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles rose by 57.31 per cent, motor cars 162.58 per cent and motor cycles 2730.35 per cent during the month of July 2006 over the same month last year.

The CKD/SKD units imported by the local auto manufacturers for assembling buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles declined by 43.74 per cent followed by motor cars 53.35 per cent and motor cycles 30.06 per cent, respectively.

This shows that the import of new and old cars have registered a growth during the first month of the current fiscal year, while the import of CKD/SKD by the local manufacturers declined, this would result into less assembling of vehicles.

The statistics showed that the import of agricultural and chemical group declined by 21.73 per cent to $259.610 million during the month under review as against $331.696 million last year.

This decline was due to 14.86 per cent negative growth in import of fertilisers, 48.52 per cent in insecticides, 21.26 per cent in plastic materials and 12.75 per cent in medicinal products.