Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – Bangladesh’s overall imports grew by 21.60 percent in the first two months of the current fiscal year (FY) due to a jump by over 130 percent increase in import of petroleum products, officials said on Tuesday.
Letters of credit (LCs) against imports worth US$5.480 billion were settled during July-August period of FY12 compared with $4.507 billion of the corresponding period of last fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
“The country’s overall imports increased during the period mainly due to higher import of petroleum products besides capital machinery and intermediate goods,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, told BBN in Dhaka.
Fuel oils import increased by 130.49 per cent to $815.50 million during the period against $353.82 million of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
The central banker also said the rising trend of importing petroleum products may continue in the coming months to meet the growing demand for oil-based power plants across the country.
Currently, around 20 oil-based power plants are operating across the country.
Installation of nearly two dozens of such power plants is also under process to help ease the power supply problem by the end of 2012, power and energy ministry officials said.
The import of food grains stood at $277.94 million during the period under review against $233.44 million of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal while other consumer goods rose to $372.81 million from $326.66 million.
Import of capital machinery —industrial equipment used for production — rose by 44.23 percent to $404.72 million during the period against $280.61 million of the corresponding period of FY11.
“The increasing trend of capital machinery imports will continue if the government ensures adequate supplies of gas and power, particularly in the industrial units,” the BB official said, adding that installing power plants will also push up the import of capital machinery in the coming months.
However, import of intermediate goods like coal, hard coke, clinker and scrap vessels increased by 92.05 percent to $449.04 million during the period from $233.82 million of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Industrial raw material import increased by 5.51 per cent to $1.932 billion during the period under review from $1.831 billion of the corresponding period of the pervious fiscal, the BB data showed.
During the period, machinery for miscellaneous industries import witnessed a 26.81 percent growth to $507.51 million compared with $400.21 million in the same period of the previous fiscal.
BBN/SSR/AD-18Oct11-9:36 pm (BST)
