ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s trade deficit during the current financial year has reached $11.751 billion, the National Assemble is told.
In a written reply to the National Assembly yesterday, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan said that during 2016, the exports were $20.80 billion with a decrease of 12 percent.
He said imports stood at $44.76b with a decrease of 2.32percent while the trade balance for the year 2016 was minus $ 23.96.
From July to November, the exports stood at $8.18 billion with a decrease of 3.93 percent and the imports were recorded $19.94 billion.
He said the export of Pakistan’s value-added items decreased by 15.9 percent since the year 2013-14. The value-added items had 73.22 percent share in the total exports of Pakistan during the last financial year. Their share in global export flows was 0.107 percent.
He told the court that yarn production increased by 1.35 percent and cloth by 0.21 percent during the last three years.
Replying a question, Dastgir said that the Indian human rights violations in the Occupied Kashmir are being raised at different forums.
Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Minister Pir Syed Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi said 618,650 individuals were sent abroad by OEPs during the year 2015-16, while the demand during the year 2015-16 was 812,074.
The assembly was told last week that the country’s net public debt crossed the Rs18.28 trillion mark, rising about 35pc during the tenure of the ruling PML-N.
This, the finance ministry told the house in response to a question from PPP MNA Shahida.
“The volume of net public debt as on Sept 30, 2016 was Rs18,277.6 billion,” the ministry’s said.
Total public debt stood at Rs13.48tr at the end of fiscal year 2012-13 — almost three years ago. The major contribution to the increase in net public debt came from an almost 40pc rise in domestic debt, which rose from Rs8.686tr at the end of 2013 to Rs12.14tr at the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal year (FY 2016-17), it was reported.
In the same period, foreign debt posted an increase of 28pc and went from Rs4.796tr in 2013 to Rs6.14 trillion on Sept 30, 2016.
