Oil Import Bill Decreases Marginally as Domestic Output Increases
Islamabad: The oil import bill of Pakistan declined by 1.19% to $11.94 billion for the first nine months of the current financial year (July–March FY25). For the same period last year, it was $12.08 billion. These figures were reported by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
This tiny drop occurred as Pakistan gradually cut down its oil imports in recent months. Meanwhile, imports of machinery went up by 13.60% to $6.65 billion. This increase encompasses all machinery except mobile phones.
Interestingly, the import of crude oil itself grew slightly by 0.36%. The amount of crude oil imported into the country increased by 14.61% to 7.43 million tonnes from 6.47 million tonnes last year. This assisted local refineries in producing more petroleum products than anticipated.
Consequently, these domestically produced petroleum items were also exported, which may assist in boosting Pakistan’s economy for this financial year.
Although greater crude oil was being imported, the imports of petroleum products decreased by 3.36% in terms of value. The overall amount of petroleum product imports, however, increased by 9.61%, from 7.17 million tonnes to 7.86 million tonnes.
The changes indicate that Pakistan is using more domestic refining and export, which could be a good indicator for economic development.
