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Imports of 300 sensitive items fall 11 per cent, Chinese imports drop

The 'war-room' set up to monitor imports of 300 sensitive items with lifting of quantitative restrictions, has found that imports, during April-May dropped 11 per cent mainly due to a fall of 28 per cent in imports from China.

An official release quoting the provisional estimates said that imports of these 300 items during the two months had dropped to Rs 14.11 billion as against Rs 15.89 billion in the corresponding period last year.

The data reveals that while imports from Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Tanzania and Vietnam increased, there was a marked decrease in imports from China, which was feared to be dumping some of these items.

Imports of dry fruits from Pakistan have gone up from Rs 17 million to Rs 34 million, it said.

Meanwhile, at the micro level, there has been an increase in imports of tea, coffee, spices, cotton, silk, marble and granite, the release said, adding that all other items had shown a decline in imports.

It added that the import figures could undergo some revision after validation of commodity codes because of the possibility of some items being misclassified by importers.

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