{"id":5547,"date":"2025-09-09T17:54:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/5547\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T17:54:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:54:12","slug":"trade-deficit-with-middle-east-soars-22pc-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/5547\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade deficit with Middle East soars 22pc &#8211; Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD: Pakistan\u2019s trade deficit with the Middle East surged by 22.38 per cent in the first month of FY26, largely driven by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1925706\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rising influx<\/a> of petroleum products from the region.<\/p>\n<p>According to data compiled by the State Bank of Pakistan, the trade deficit with the Middle East reached $1.323 billion in July FY26, up from $1.081bn during the same month last year.<\/p>\n<p>In FY25, the deficit with the region increased by 7.37pc, rising to $13.974bn from $13.014bn in the previous year. The growing trade imbalance has raised concerns among policymakers, with the primary culprit being the rising import of petroleum products from the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>While petroleum consumption has increased, exports to the region have only seen modest growth, concentrated in a limited number of countries.<\/p>\n<p>Exports to the Middle East declined by 16.11pc in July FY26, falling to $254.15 million from $302.99m in the same month of the previous year. For FY25, exports to the region dropped by 1.52pc, reaching $3.107bn, compared to $3.155bn in FY24.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, imports from the Middle East saw an increase of 14.02pc, rising to $1.578bn in July FY26, compared to $1.384bn in the same period last year. In FY25, imports grew by 5.64pc, reaching $17.081bn, up from $16.169bn in FY24.<\/p>\n<p>Exports to Saudi Arabia fell by 5.95pc, reaching $54.02m in July FY26, down from $57.44m in the same month last year. Imports from Saudi Arabia also declined by 7.73pc, totalling $330.95m compared to $358.71m in the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>Exports to the UAE saw a sharp decline of 18.56pc, falling to $176.65m in July FY26 from $216.92m last year. However, imports from the UAE surged by 47.77pc, reaching $816.01m, compared to $552.22m in July FY25.<\/p>\n<p>Exports to Bahrain stood at $5.41m in July compared to $4.85m in the corresponding period last year. Imports from Bahrain, however, saw a sharp increase, rising to $14.01m from just $2.64m.<\/p>\n<p>Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ISLAMABAD: Pakistan\u2019s trade deficit with the Middle East surged by 22.38 per cent in the first month of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-5547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}