Oil imports post paltry growth in July-January

The oil import bill grew a paltry 1.35 per cent in the first seven months of the current fiscal year to $9.46 billion from $9.33bn over the corresponding period last year, showed data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Monday. The data analysis suggests that all the groups, including petroleum goods, consumer durables and raw materials, have witnessed a growth in imports during the July-January 2024-25. The overall import bill posted a growth of 7.08pc year-on-year to $33.08bn in July-January, mainly due to an increase in the arrival of raw materials, textile products, agriculture products, machinery and automobile sectors. Product-wise data showed the largest increase from crude oil, up 4.98pc in 7MFY25 from a year ago. However, the total quantity of petroleum crude rose 18.20pc to 5.78 million tonnes from 4.89m tonnes last year.