In June, the current account of Pakistan continued its trend of posting a surplus for the fourth consecutive month, reaching approximately $334 million.
This is a significant improvement compared to a deficit of $2.32 billion in the same month last year, as per data released by the central bank on Tuesday.
Over the previous fiscal year, the overall deficit saw a remarkable reduction of 85%, declining to $2.56 billion. This transformation was driven by a shift in the current account from a deficit of $3.76 billion in the first half of the fiscal year to a surplus of over $1.2 billion in the second half.
During the same fiscal year, the country’s trade deficit also narrowed down by 43%, amounting to $27.59 billion. This was mainly due to restrictions imposed by the State Bank, leading to a decrease in imports, which fell to $51.99 billion compared to $71.54 billion the previous year. While goods exports slightly declined from $32.49 billion to $27.9 billion, services exports remained nearly the same at $7.3 billion.
However, this process of reducing the current account deficit has adversely affected certain sectors of the economy that rely heavily on imported goods, particularly raw materials. Many industries experienced negative growth, and the large-scale manufacturing sector recorded a negative growth rate of 9.4% during the first 10 months of the fiscal year.