KARACHI, Aug 21: Payment of service charges by the US against services provided by the Pakistan government fell sharply this year compared to the last year.

The US payment against the government services slashed to just above $180 million during the last fiscal from over a billion dollar paid by the US in the year 2005-06. The US has been making payments in billions for the services provided by the Pakistan government, especially after attack on Afghanistan in October 2001.

Pakistan received about $183 million as cost of services provided to the US in the fiscal 2006-07, reveals official figures. This was in contrast to the previous year’s payment as the US paid $1.242 billion as charges for government services in 2005-06.

Pakistan benefited financially for the logistic support it provided in the US-led war on terrorism over the last six years. Recently, however, the US somewhat changed its stance by criticizing Pakistan for not doing enough to root out the menace. Some US leaders have demanded of their government to penalize the country by stopping all aid.

Official data confirmed that the US was still the biggest trading partner of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s export of services has gone up significantly during the fiscal 2006-07. If the trend could have persisted it could have contributed to reduce the trade imbalance.

The country improved its services exports by $353 million in 2006-07 to reach the total as $4.122 billion. However, the import of services was almost double above $8 billion.

The decline in export of government services to US cost over $1 billion to the country putting heavy weight in favour of imbalance in services trade. The export of goods to US slightly increased to $3.843 billion compared to $3.687 billion of previous year.

Traders and analysts fear that any turnaround in relations with the US could jeopardize both the goods and services trade with the country, which would only add to widening of trade imbalance and current account deficits of Pakistan. Exporters of the country rely heavily on US and European markets. “The US lawmakers have changed their tone if that translates into lesser access for Pakistani products and services, it would be disastrous,” said Shariq Roomi, a software exporter to US.

He says that the new emerging software industry totally relies on US market fearing that soaring Pak-US relations would result in a collapse of the limited software industry.