Pakistan’s oil import bill witnessed a slight decrease of 1.19%, dropping to $11.94 billion in the first nine months of fiscal year 2024-25, compared to $12.08 billion during the same period last year, according to data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
This decline follows a gradual reduction in oil imports over recent months, which eventually led to negative growth.
Specifically, crude oil imports saw a marginal increase of 0.36%, with the total quantity of petroleum crude rising by 14.61% to 7.43 million tonnes, compared to 6.47 million tonnes last year.
In contrast, the value of petroleum product imports decreased by 3.36%, but the total quantity of petroleum products imported grew by 9.61%, reaching 7.86 million tonnes from 7.17 million tonnes last year.
However, the country saw a sharp increase in machinery imports, which grew by 13.60%, reaching $6.65 billion during the July-March period, compared to $5.85 billion in the same period of the previous year. This growth was observed across various machinery imports, excluding mobile phones.
The PBS data also showed an increase in crude oil imports during this period, prompting local refineries to ramp up production, leading to higher exports of petroleum products.
Preliminary estimates suggest that this rise in local production and exports could contribute positively to economic growth in the ongoing fiscal year.
