Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The import of essential commodities and capital machinery fell significantly in the first four months of the current fiscal year (FY 2012-13) due mainly to lower demand for the items, officials said.
“We’re closely monitoring the latest import situation,” an executive director of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank said without elaborating.
The overall import in terms of settlement of letters of credit (LCs) witnessed a negative growth by 11.04 per cent during the July-October period of the FY13 against 22.92 per cent growth in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
The value of LCs against import worth US$10.757 billion was settled during the period under review, compared to $12.091 billion during the same period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
Bankers, however, said the ongoing political unrest centring on the caretaker government issue has discouraged the entrepreneurs to import capital machinery to set up new industrial units.
“Weak infrastructural facilities and inadequate gas and power supply have also discouraged the investors to invest in fresh industrial projects,” a senior official of a private bank said. “Most of the banks have slashed trade financing in the recent months mainly due to inadequate liquidity.”
The import of intermediate goods and industrial raw materials also decreased, following lower import of capital machinery in the recent months, he added.
The import of capital machinery and industrial equipment used for production, also dropped by 28.16 per cent to $ 644.45 million during the July-October period of the FY 13 from $ 897.06 million during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
Industrial raw material import fell by 4.51 per cent to $ 4.294 billion during the first four months of the FY 13 from $4.496 billion during the same period of the FY 12.
The import of intermediate goods like coal, scrap-vessels, hard coke and clinker dropped by 4.83 per cent to $ 990.21 million during the period under review from $ 1.040 billion during the same period of the FY 12.
Import of petroleum products decreased by 7.45 per cent to $ 1.562 billion during the period under review from $ 1.687 billion during the same period of the previous fiscal due to seasonal effect, the BB officials said.
Import of food grains, such as rice and wheat, in terms of settlement of LCs, witnessed a negative growth of 42.38 per cent. The import fell to $ 246.66 million during the period under review from $ 428.10 million during the same period of the FY 12.
“The import of rice is almost suspended recently because of its adequate stock,” another BB official said, adding that the country is now importing only wheat along with a small quantity of fine rice to meet the domestic demand.
He also said the overall import increased slightly this November over the previous month, mainly due to higher import of capital machinery.
The import of capital machinery rose to $169.72 million in November from $110.24 million in October, the BB data showed.
Overall opening of LCs against import increased by nearly 8.00 percent to $2.789 billion in November from $2.586 billion in the previous month.
On the other hand, the settlement of LCs also improved by nearly 2.0 percent to $2.664 billion in November 2012 from $2.615 billion in October 2012.
“We expect that the overall import may pick up in the near future,” the central banker noted.
BBN/SSR/AD-22Dec12-10:10 pm (BST)
