ISLAMABAD – The import of tea witnessed a decrease of 26.38 percent during the first five months of the current fiscal year (2019-20) as compared to the corresponding period of last year.
Pakistan imported tea worth US $184.361 million during July-November (2019-20) against the import of $250.413 million during the same period of 2018-19, according to the latest data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
In terms of quantity, the tea imports during the period under review decreased by 15.54 percent by going down from the imports of 93,444 metric tons to 78,922 metric tons.
On the basis of year-on-year, the tea imports decreased by 19.55 percent during the month of November 2019 compared to the same month of last year. The tea import was recorded at $41.791 million in November 2019 as compared to the imports of $51.946 million in November 2018, the PBS data revealed.
On a month-on-month basis, the tea imports, however, increased by 3.60 percent in November 2019 as compared to the imports of $40.340 million in October 2019.
It is pertinent to mention here that the country’s merchandise trade deficit plunged by 33.67 percent during the first six months of the current fiscal year (2019-20) as compared to the deficit of the same period of last year.
The trade deficit during July-December (2019-20) was recorded at $ 11.628 billion against the deficit of $16.771 billion during July-December (2018-19), the data revealed.
The exports during the period increased from US $11.181 billion during last year to $11.535 billion during the current fiscal year, showing the growth of 3.17 percent.
On the other hand, country’s imports witnessed 17.13 percent decline by falling from $ 27.952 billion of last year to $23.163 billion during the current fiscal year, the data revealed.
