Home »Business and Economy » Pakistan » Services trade deficit plunges 8.5 percent in July
Services trade deficit plunged by 8.5 percent during the first month of this fiscal year (FY19-20) supported by contraction in the outflow of imports. Economists say that massive decline in services trade deficit will also help to reduce pressure on external account. Although, the services sector account is still negative during July, however despite that service trade statistics are very encouraging as its imports are on decline and exports are almost stable, they added.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), country's services sector trade has registered a deficit of $473 million during July compared to $517 million in same period of last fiscal year, depicting a decline of 8.5 percent or $44 million in a month. The detail analysis revealed that during the period under review services sector imports shrank by 5 percent supported by lower travel and transport import bill. Pakistan's services sector import stood at $899 million in the first month of this fiscal year as against $948 million in corresponding period of last fiscal year, down $49 million. Similarly, with $5 million decline services sector exports were $426 million in July 2019 down from $431 million in July 2018.

During July 2019, the country earned $105 million on account of telecommunications and computers services, $62 million from transport, $38 million from travel services, $87 from government goods and services, $9 million through financial services and $117 million on account of other business services. Meanwhile, during the period under review, services payment of transport sector were $322 million, Travel $215 million, $35 million on account of telecommunication and Information services, $29 million as charges for use of intellectual propriety and an amount of $37 million was paid as government goods and services. It may be mentioned here that during the last fiscal year, services trade deficit was narrowed down 30 percent to $4.288 billion with $5.376 billion exports and $9.664 billion imports.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019


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