ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s current account deficit has exceeded $12.32 billion mark in the first eight months of ongoing fiscal year, July 2021 to Feb 2022.
However, in the month of Feb 2022, the current account deficit has shown a big dent as it fell to $575 million dollars against $2.56 billion in Jan-2022. It indicates that the government’s measures taken to contain unwanted current account deficit have started yielding the desired results from Feb-2022.
From July 2021 to Feb 2022, Pakistan has suffered a total of $12.324 billion current account deficit against a surplus of $807 million in the corresponding period of previous financial year.
Basically, the trade deficit has increased alarmingly, to $29.87 billion in eight months of the ongoing financial year in comparison with $17.31 billion trade deficit in the same period in last financial year. Thus, more than $12 billion growth in the trade deficit has expanded the current account deficit in the first eight months of 2021-22, according to the latest data of the State Bank of Pakistan.
Very high crude oil, gas, edible oil and other commodities prices in the international market have widened the trade deficit and current account imbalance of Pakistan this year.
Earlier, The current account deficit of Pakistan has widened to beyond $11 billion in first seven months of the ongoing fiscal year. During July 2021 to January 2022, the current account deficit of Pakistan has expanded to $11.58 billion in comparison with $1.05 billion surplus current account balance in the corresponding period of the preceding fiscal year.
In the month of January 2022, Pakistan’s current account deficit (CAD) rose to $2.6 billion, from $1.9bn in December 2021, largely due to imports in kind that are fully financed.
