By Islamuddin Sajid
ISLAMABAD (AA) – Pakistan exports rose 20% in July after four-month decline following the coronavirus restrictions and lockdown in the country, officials said Monday.
The country also recorded high remittances in the first month of new fiscal year.
Prime Minister Imran Khan lauded his government’s achievement and said the current account balance, difference between the government’s higher foreign expenditure and lower income, posted surplus.
"MashaAllah, Pakistan's economy is on the right track. After current account balance posted deficit of $613 mn [million] in July 2019 & a deficit of $100 mn in June 2020, in July 2020 current account balance swung upwards to a surplus of $424 mn," Khan tweeted.
"This strong turnaround is a result of continuing recovery in exports, which rose 20% compared to June 2020, & record remittances," Khan added.
On Aug. 18, the country's central bank said they had received record-high remittances of $2.768 billion in July following a record $23 billion remittances during the outgoing financial year from June 2019 to June 2020.
"More good news for Pak economy. Remittances from overseas Pakistanis reached $2,768 mn in July 2020, highest ever amount in one month in the history of Pakistan. This is 12.2% increase over June 2020 and 36.5% increase over July 2019," the country's premier said.
"Export results for month of July 2020 have come in & there has been a growth of 5.8%, in dollar value terms, as compared to the same month last year. This is a great achievement considering that for the last four months, since March 2020, we witnessed a decline in exports," Razak Dawood, adviser to prime minister of Pakistan for commerce and investment, tweeted.
On Monday, Pakistan reported 496 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide tally to 293,261.
The country is witnessing decline in new infections since last month that has seated Pakistan 16th worldwide in terms of infections, down from 12.
With nine new fatalities, the total number of deaths rose to 6244, while 276,829 patients have gotten over the disease so far, making up over 94% recoveries.