July-January current account deficit at $81 million

Country's current account deficit for July-January was a provisional $81 million, compared with a deficit of $3.052 billion in the same period last year, the central bank said on Friday. In January, the current account deficit was a provisional $62 million, compared with a surplus of $570 million in December.
The current account deficit for the fiscal year 2009/10 was $3.946 billion, compared with $9.261 billion in fiscal year 2008/09. In absolute terms, the country's current account deficit narrowed down by 97 percent during this period of fiscal year 2010-11, mainly due to healthy growth in exports and home remittances. The current account balance was positive and registered a surplus of 26 million dollars in first half (July-December). However, that was driven by an additional payment of collation support fund (CSF) by US.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Friday that the country's current account deficit declined by 97.34 percent during July-January period of current fiscal year. Current account deficit stood at $81 million during this period as compared to $3.052 billion in the corresponding period of 2009-10, depicting a decline of $2.971 billion.
With a decline of $2.808, current account deficit without official transfers declined to $396 million during the period as compared to $3.204 billion in corresponding period of last fiscal year. Statistics show that deficit in the goods, services and income had gradually narrowed down and combined deficit of these segments stood at $8.746 billion in first seven months of current fiscal year relative to $10.340 billion in same period of last fiscal year, showing a decline of $1.594 billion.
Goods trade sector deficit declined by $379 million during the period, as overall goods imports stood at $19.55 billion and exports at $13.172 billion during July-January of fiscal year 2011 as compared to $17.712 billion imports and $10.95 billion exports in corresponding period of last fiscal year 2010. With $3.424 billion exports and $4.142 billion imports services sector deficit narrowed down by 60 percent, or $1.06 billion, to $718 million in first seven months of current fiscal year as against deficit of $1.778 billion in same period of fiscal year 2010.
Income sector deficit posted a decline of $155 million, to $1.645 billion, as compared to $1.800 billion in the same period of last fiscal year. Payments under income sector stood at $2.049 billion and earnings at $404 million during July-January of current fiscal year. Month on month basis, the country's current account deficit posted a deficit of $62 million in January as against a surplus of $570 million in December.