Home »Stocks and Bonds » Pakistan » July-September current account deficit at $1.427 billion

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  • Nov 11th, 2005
  • Comments Off on July-September current account deficit at $1.427 billion
The current account showed a deficit of $1.427 billion in the first quarter of 2005-06 as compared to a surplus of $119 million in the same period of the last year, the central bank said on Thursday.

Analysts said the higher deficit was mainly due to high global oil prices and higher demand for imports, particularly raw materials and machinery.

Provisional data posted by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on its Website said that the trade deficit during the July-September period was $1.9 billion as compared to a $782 million deficit in the corresponding period of the last year. In September, the current account deficit widened by $189 million.

"The figure for September is comforting, as it is not as much of a sharp rise as in the preceding months," said Asif Qureshi, head of research at Invisor Securities in Karachi.

"However, the number for the quarter is still over 1.1 percent of the GDP, and should be a cause of concern for the government."

The sustained weakening of the current account had already started affecting the foreign exchange reserves and could result in a further dip in reserves if the trend continues, analysts said.

Copyright Reuters, 2005


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