ISLAMABAD, May 6: Trade deficit during the first 10 months of current financial year slid to $921.31 million, that is, $481.53 million less than during the corresponding period of previous year.

According to the preliminary figures available from the Federal Bureau of Statistics here Monday, the 34.33 per cent drop in deficit was despite 1.78 per cent decrease in exports. But then the imports too plummeted sharply by 6.93 per cent, hence the substantial improvement in balance of trade.

The value of merchandise exports scored by Pakistan during the period July-April (2001-02) totalled $7.32 billion, while the imports stood at $8.24 billion.

The proportion of imports covered by exports during the period under report turns out to be 88.83 per cent, denoting a significant improvement over the same period of previous year when a little over 84 per cent imports were paid for by exports. But the improvement is explained by substantial drop in imports attributable to a sluggish economy.

The dismal state of the exports sector is also evident when we look at the very modest target which has been fixed by the government in order to down-play the failure of Commerce Ministry to boost that sector.

According to the analysis of figures given by FBS, the country needs to raise the exports to $838 million per month in order to achieve the target ($9.00 billion). Even this target seems difficult in view of the fact that in the first ten months of the year, monthly average of exports came to $732 million.

In April, the exports stood at $785.76 million up 8.27 per cent from the previous month (March 2002). This is also 6.62 per cent more than the exports registered during April 2001. As regards the imports, these amounted to $890.33 million — 0.43 per cent more than in March 2002 and 8.72 per cent more than in April 2001.