The gap between import data from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) alarmingly grew to a historic high of USD 1.5 billion in November, the biggest sum in a single month since 2008 when reconciliation issue first arose.
The official data showed that Pakistan's imports stood at USD 7.9 billion in November 2021 in accordance with PBS data while it stood at USD 6.4 billion on the basis of data compiled by SBP, indicating a widening gap of USD 1.5 billion, reported Geo News.
All this is happening when the Pakistani exchange rate has plummeted, with the rupee's depreciation from Rs 152 to Rs 180 against the US dollar.
There has always been a slight difference in data of both PBS and SBP. A few years back, the SBP had published a research report and found that ten years of data showed reconciliation occurring by end of the day.
PBS data revealed import of food group stood at USD 888 million in November 2021, while SBP data showed import of food group was only USD 705 million, showing a massive USD 183 million disparity, reported Geo News.
Though it had been a troublesome issue for the last 13 years, it had never reached USD 1.5 billion on a monthly basis, reported Geo News.
In the first five months (July-Nov) period of the current fiscal year 2021-22, the PBS showed that imports stood at USD 31.012 billion while SBP was showing total imports of USD 29.901 billion, indicating a gap of USD 3.11 billion in the five months period, reported Geo News.
It has become a source of major concern because the gap between SBP and PBS widened to a massive level in November 2021. The SBP receives data from commercial banks when importers make payments against L/Cs. Due to a variety of factors (like imports on deferred payments, freight, and insurance, etc), there is a natural discrepancy between the two datasets, reported Geo News.
( With inputs from ANI )
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