ISLAMABAD: The overall imports of the petroleum group witnessed an increase of 4.01pc during the first ten months of the current fiscal year (FY2018-19) as compared to the corresponding period of the last year.
During the period under review, the total imports of the petroleum group stood at $11.89 billion, as against the imports of $11.44 billion in 2017-18, according to the latest data issued by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
The products that contributed in inflated petroleum import bill included crude oil, the imports of which surged by 14.32pc, as $3.81 billion were spent on the purchase of the commodity from international markets in the first ten months of 2018-19, as compared to $3.33 billion spent during the same period of the previous year.
The import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) also witnessed a sharp increase of 46.06pc to $2.72 billion during the period under review, as against the import of $1.86 billion in the same period of last fiscal year.
On the other hand, products that helped reduce import bill during the period under review included petroleum products, which witnessed a negative growth of 14.38pc, as it fell from $6 billion last year to $5.14 billion.
The import of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) also decreased by 5.2pc, from $234.904 million last year to $222.685 million in the current year.
The import of all other petroleum group products, however, increased by 18.89pc, from $0.180 million last year to $0.214 million.
Meanwhile, on a year-on-year basis, the imports of petroleum products increased 5.72pc in April 2019 as compared to the imports of the same month of last year. The petroleum group imports during April 2019 were recorded at $1.28 billion against the imports of $1.21 billion last year.
On a month-on-month basis, the petroleum group imports increased by 29.16pc in April 2019 as compared to the imports of $995.427 million in March 2019, the data revealed.
