ISLAMABAD: Mobile phones' import witnessed an increase of 89.03 percent in the first month (July) of fiscal year 2020-2021 as it remained $148.001 million compared to $78.299 million during the same period last year, says the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Telecom experts are linking the phenomenal growth in mobile imports to the implementation of the Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS).

Mobile phone imports in June 2020, which stood at $231.303 million, registered 300.62 percent growth as compared to $57.736 million imports in June 2019.

However, compared to June mobile imports witnessed 36 percent decline in July 2020.

Overall telecom imports saw an increase of 48.81 percent during July 2020 when compared to the same period of last year.

Total imports were recorded at $176.904 million during this period, when compared to $118.877 million in July 2019, while registering 35.24 percent decline, compared to $273.166 million in June 2020.

Other telecom apparatus imports witnessed a decline of over 28.78 percent in July 2020 as it stood at $28.903 million against $40.582 million during the same period of last year.

When compared to June 2020, other telecom apparatus imports registered 30.96 percent negative growth in July as it was $41.864 million in June 2020.

Overall imports into Pakistan during July, 2020 amounted to Rs614.934 billion (provisional) as against Rs611.449 billion (provisional) in June, 2020 and Rs589.739 billion during July 2019, showing an increase of 0.57 percent over June, 2020, and of 4.27 percent over July 2019.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020