File photo: A customer buys vegetables from a stall at a market in Karachi on July 3, 2023. (Photo by Asif HASSAN / AFP)
Islamabad: Pakistan's trade deficit reached 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in November, expanding by nearly 33 percent from the same month last year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said Tuesday.
Exports fell to 2.39 billion dollars, down 15.4 percent year on year, while imports rose to 5.25 billion dollars, up 5.4 percent from 4.98 billion dollars in November 2024.
The annual increase in the import-export gap pushed the monthly trade deficit deeper into negative territory, widening from 2.15 billion dollars a year earlier.
Month on month, however, the deficit narrowed from 3.24 billion dollars in October, as both exports and imports declined compared with the previous month.
In the first five months of fiscal year 2025-26, the trade deficit climbed to 15.47 billion dollars, up 37 percent from 11.28 billion dollars in the same period last year, according to the PBS.
