The Current Account Balance (CAB) recorded a $654 million surplus in March 2023 against a deficit of $36 million in February 2023. According to the latest data released by the State Bank of Pakistan on April 19, 2023, the Current Account Deficit decreased by 74.1 percent to $3.4 billion during the nine months of the current fiscal year 2022-23, as opposed to the deficit of $13.0 billion during corresponding period last year. On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the current account deficit posted a record decline of 60 percent as it went down to $388 million in March 2023 from $981 million in the same month of the year 2022.According to the data, the exports of goods decreased from $23.7 billion in Jul-March 2022-23 to $21.1 billion in the same period of the current fiscal year. On the other hand, the imports of goods also fell from $52.7 billion to $41.5 billion in the period under review. The overall trade deficit also shrank to $20.4 billion in the first nine months of FY23 as compared to the deficit of $29.0 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year. Similarly, the trade deficit in services also shrank to $229 million this year as compared to the deficit of $4.2 billion in the same period of the previous year. The deficit of primary income increased to $3.9 billion during the period under review as compared to $3.8 billion in the same period of the previous year. The combined deficit of goods, services, and primary income also declined to $24.5 billion in the corresponding period while during the same period of last year, the deficit was recorded at $37.1 billion.
Source: IBP