Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have crossed $15 billion, but the current account deficit further widened in the first five months of this fiscal year.
The State Bank of Pakistan reported earlier today, that the current account deficit widened by $200 million to $2.345bn during July-November period of 2014-15 mainly due to higher imports and decline in exports. The rising external trade gap has neutralised the impact of huge inflow of remittances along with other inflows.
The SBP reported that imports were almost double the exports during the period as these rose to $18.55bn against exports of $9.94bn. Exports dropped by $198m while imports were up by $1.035bn.
During the five months of this fiscal year, exports of services increased by $373m to $2.376m while imports remained almost static at $3.372bn. Last year these were $3.311bn.
