IANS
Nepal suffered a total of $17.6mn trade deficit a day during the first eight months of the current fiscal year, government data showed yesterday.
According to data released by Trade and Export Promotion Center (TEPC), an agency that documents the foreign trade data, the Himalayan country imported goods worth $20.31mn a day and supplied items equaling to $2.70mn a day.
“The per day trade loss soared up due to the massive import of goods including, petroleum products, iron and steel products, vehicles, machinery, electronics and food commodities from India and third country, the report said.
Nepal suffered trade deficit of $4.23bn in the first eight months of fiscal year 2013-14, up by 17.8% compared to the trade deficit it suffered during the same period in the last fiscal year.
As per the data the country imported goods and services worth $4.88bn during the first eight months of 2013/14 while recorded the export of goods and services worth only $64.8mn.
Trade deficit has come to be the biggest threat of Nepal’s economy. Due to the supply side constraints including low production and obstacles at customs points, the South Asian country has not been able to do significant amount of export trade.
“Until and unless, we are able to minimise our supply side constraints, Nepal can never export goods, resulting in the massive amount of trade deficit,” Nepal’s former commerce secretary Purushottam Ojha told Xinhua by phone.
According to the report, petroleum products, iron and steel products, automobile and auto parts, telecommunication and electronic equipment, and gold were the country’s main imports during the review period.
“Import of petroleum products increased by 24.8% to $934mn while the country imported iron and steel products worth $425mn in the eight-month period,” added the report.
Even though the Nepal government has already announced to set up a high-level task force in a bid to minimise its ballooning trade deficit, no progress has been made in this respect.