The country''s current account has become surplus by $748 million in ten months of current fiscal year 2010-11 as a result of massive inflows of home remittance and rise in exports. "The rising and average over one billion dollars home remittances during last three months, besides high exports, have largely contributed to post a surplus in the current account during the first ten months of current fiscal year", economists said.
They said it is a major economic achievement, as the high current account deficit in November 2010 had forced Pakistan to rejoin International Monetary Fund program. Definitely, surplus current account will put positive impact on overall economy, they added. They said that the surplus of current account would also support the rupee and exchange rate, besides strengthening foreign exchange reserves at high level.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday said that the country''s current account balance has become positive for the second consecutive month and posted a surplus of $748 million in July-April of 2010-11 as compared to $3.456 billion deficit in corresponding period of last fiscal year. During the current fiscal year, for the third time, the current account deficit has become positive, as earlier in July-December of fiscal year 2011 it was surplus by $26 million, while it was also surplus by $99 million in July-March 2011.
In April alone, the current account had a provisional surplus of$716 million compared with a surplus of $230 in March this year. The current account deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year was $3.946 billion, compared with $9.261 billion in 2008-09 fiscal year.
Total deficit of trade, services and income stood at $12.098 billion during the first ten months of current fiscal year as against current account transfers of $12.907 billion. The country''s overall goods imports stood at $28.811 billion and exports at $20.526 billion with a trade deficit of $8.285 billion during July-April of fiscal year 2011. The trade deficit previously stood at $9.29 billion along with $16.16 billion exports and $25.45 billion imports during same period of last fiscal year 2010.
Services sector deficit stood at $1.392 billion with $4.662 billion exports and $6.05 billion imports in July-April of fiscal year 2011. Similarly, income sector outflows stood at $2.983 billion and $562 million inflows during the period under review. The State Bank had already predicted that current account deficit will be less than target and is likely to near about 2 percent of GDP at the end of current fiscal year.