ISLAMABAD, Jan 25 (APP): State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan on Tuesday informed the Senate that the country’s exports had increased by 25 percent during the first half of the current fiscal year due to prudent policies introduced by the incumbent government.

Responding to Calling Attention notice regarding the trade deficit of Pakistan that has reached 24.787 billion US dollars in the first six months of the current financial year, the minister said only in December the exports remained at $2.761 billion with a 32 percent surge as compared to the same month of the fiscal year 2020-21.

“The exports remained at the highest level of around $2 billion per month during the last tenure of the PML-N government, which has now increased $ 3 billion per month,” he said. He said that during the tenure of PML-N the export figure was 2 billion dollars per month, while the PTI government is touching 3 billion dollars figure per month

The minister said, that when the Pakistan Muslim League government had left the government, the country had only 9 billion dollars foreign exchange reserve, while now the country’s reserves had reached 19.5 billion dollars. He said that by the end of the current financial year, the foreign exchange reserves will touch the figure of 24 billion dollars. He said that debt to GDP had also been brought down.

He said that the surge in imports came amid a booming commodity demand after COVID-19 recovery, the sharp increase in global commodity prices mainly in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), petroleum, energy, coal, and food-related essential items.

“Imports of vaccines have been made due to the spread of Covid-19 in the country, which has a significant impact on the import bill.”
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He said that garments export and the large manufacturing sector’s exports had also witnessed an upward trend.

He regretted that the exports sector faced destruction due to wrong economic policies introduced by the past regime of Nawaz Sharif and Ishaq Dar.