KARACHI: The current account balance has recorded a deficit of $1.85 billion for the fiscal year 2020/21, according to the statistics of the balance of payment released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday.
The current account deficit; however, narrowed, compared with the deficit of $4.45 billion in the preceding fiscal year.
The current account-to-GDP recorded a deficit of 0.6 per cent for the fiscal year 2020/21, compared with the deficit of 1.7 per cent in the last fiscal year.
Analysts said the current account posted a deficit for the full-year due to a significant increase in the import bill during the last few months of the fiscal year.
The current account posted a deficit of $1.64 billion for June 2021, as the deficit stood at $650 million in May 2021.
The trade deficit of the country recorded an increase of 34.29 per cent for the fiscal year under review. The trade deficit widened to $31.10 billion during the fiscal year 2020/21, compared with $23.16 billion in the preceding fiscal year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported.
The exports of the country rose 18.28 per cent to $25.30 billion in the fiscal year 2020/21, compared with $21.39 billion. The import bill also climbed 26.6 per cent to $56.40 billion, compared with $44.55 billion.
However, the record inflows of workers’ remittances in the fiscal year 2020/21 checked further widening of the current account deficit.
The remittances rose to a historic high of $29.4 billion, the SBP said. This has helped improve the country’s external sector position, despite the challenging global economic conditions last year.
The remittances registered a substantial 27 per cent growth in 2020/21 over the last year, the fastest rate of expansion since 2002/03, the SBP added.
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