The initiative to attract investment from expatriate Pakistanis through the Roshan Digital Account (RDA) has gained momentum and a spike in inflows is anticipated for the months ahead.
Pakistanis earning their bread and butter abroad have maintained the flow of strong remittances, as they remained over $2 billion, to their families and friends in January, helping the country strengthen its foreign currency reserves and improve its capacity to make international payments.
Trade deficit widens 21% to $2.6b
Increase comes on back of rising imports to support industrial, agricultural activities
Cumulatively, in first seven months of current fiscal year, the trade deficit widened over 8% to $14.96 billion compared to $13.82 billion in the same period of last year. PHOTO: FILE
Pakistan’s trade deficit - the gap between imports and exports - widened 21% to $2.6 billion in January 2021 mainly due to acceleration in imports to support industrial and agricultural activities which were a must to expand overall economic activities in the country.
The trade deficit stood at $2.15 billion in January 2020, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Monday.
The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) , a barometer to gauge economic performance, has emerged as the second best performing regional market in January, as it hit three-year high growth in share prices with 16-year high trade volume and 13-year high trade value in the last session.
Pakistan’s textile sector - which alone attracts around 60% of the total export earnings - reports that they have started losing international buyers’ orders to regional competitors and their new investment and expansion plans have gotten jeopardised in the wake of government’s decision to cut gas supplies for power production to their individual units.