Trade deficit grows 23% with imports rising faster than exports

Islamabad – (Web Desk) – Pakistan’s trade deficit has grown sharply this year. In the first nine months of the current fiscal year, the gap between imports and exports reached $27.81 billion. That is nearly 23% more than the same period last year.

The numbers tell a worrying story. The country brought in $50.54 billion worth of goods from July to March. But it only sold $22.7 billion abroad. So imports were more than double what Pakistan exported.

Exports actually fell too. They dropped over 8% compared to last year. That makes things harder to fix.

March 2026 was no different. The monthly trade gap came in at $2.73 billion. Exports that month fell by more than 14%. Imports also dipped a little but not enough to close the gap.

Economists are worried. If this continues, Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves could shrink. That would put pressure on the rupee again. And for a country still finding its financial footing, that is not good news.

Services trade on the other hand provided little cushion. The services deficit widened 3.1% to $2.14 billion in July-February FY26, as a healthy 18.4% rise in services exports to $6.46 billion was outpaced by a 14.2% surge in services imports to $8.6 billion.

One positive sign came in February 2026, when the services deficit fell 62% from a year earlier to $97.8 million. However, analysts warned not to read too much into just one month’s data.

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With export momentum subdued and import demand proving resilient, economists say meaningful deficit reduction will require either a significant boost in export competitiveness or a sustained compression of imports, neither of which appears imminent.