Pakistan Trade Deficit Widens 20% to $3.88 Billion in October as Imports Outpace Exports

By Bilal Ahmed | Updated: 7 November 2026

Pakistan’s trade deficit widened by almost a fifth in October 2026, reaching $3.88 billion, as imports grew far faster than exports. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released the figures on Friday, 6 November 2026. Exports rose just 2.8% to $2.93 billion, while imports jumped 11.8% to $6.81 billion, leaving a gap nearly 20% wider than the $3.24 billion recorded in October last year.

That is the headline, and it matters for a simple reason. Every month that Pakistan buys much more from the world than it sells, the country has to find the dollars to pay the difference. October was the fourth month in a row of that pattern, and the four-month gap is now 16% bigger than it was a year ago.

The October numbers, in plain terms

Start with the arithmetic, because it tells the whole story in one line. Pakistan sold $2.93 billion worth of goods abroad in October and bought $6.81 billion worth. The difference between the two is the trade deficit, and it came to $3.88 billion. Imports were more than twice the value of exports.

A year earlier, in October 2025, the picture was a little less lopsided. Exports stood at $2.85 billion and imports at $6.09 billion, giving a deficit of $3.24 billion. Since then exports have inched up by $80 million, while imports have risen by $720 million. In other words, for every extra dollar Pakistan earned from exports this October, it spent roughly nine extra dollars on imports.

The month-on-month picture is no better. September 2026 had already produced a $3.52 billion deficit, and October pushed that up by another 10.3%. October’s widening, on top of September’s $3.52 billion gap, is what has put the trade gap back at the centre of the economic conversation.

It is worth remembering what a trade deficit is and is not. It is not, by itself, a verdict on the economy. Countries that are growing often import more, because factories need raw materials and machinery, and consumers buy more. The worry starts when the gap keeps widening month after month and the export side barely moves. That is the pattern October’s numbers show.

Why the gap widened

The honest answer is that the PBS release gives the totals, not the full story behind them. What the totals do show is a clear imbalance in speed. Imports grew at 11.8% year-on-year, more than four times the 2.8% pace of exports. When one side of the ledger grows four times faster than the other, the gap widens almost whatever the starting point is.

Analysts watching the numbers have pointed to the same risk for months. Waqas Ghani, head of research at JS Global, warned that the widening trade gap could put pressure on the current account and on foreign exchange reserves, particularly if global energy prices remain elevated. Energy is the part of the import bill that Pakistan has the least control over. When world oil and gas prices stay high, the cost of keeping the lights on and the wheels turning rises whether the economy is booming or not, and the import bill follows.

That energy link is one reason winter fuel buying is watched so closely each year. Pakistan has been arranging liquefied natural gas cargoes for the winter months, and every cargo adds to the import side of the ledger. Readers following that story can catch up on Pakistan’s spot LNG tender for two winter cargoes and what it means for the months ahead.

On the export side, the problem is the opposite of speed. A 2.8% rise is growth, but it is slow growth, and it came on a small base. Exporters have been saying for a long time that the cost of doing business in Pakistan makes it hard to compete on price in world markets. Power tariffs are a big part of that complaint, and industry has been watching every change in electricity pricing closely. The recent industrial tariff decision is covered in detail in NEPRA’s industrial tariff of Rs25–30 per unit for November bills.

One month never settles the question. But economists watch the direction of travel, and right now the gap is getting wider, not narrower.

Four months into the fiscal year, the trend is set

Monthly figures bounce around, so the four-month cumulative total is often the more honest measure. For July to October 2026, the first four months of fiscal year 2026-27, the trade deficit reached $14.63 billion. That is 16% higher than the $12.61 billion recorded in the same four months of last year.

Over that same period, exports totalled $11.34 billion, up 8.52% on last year, while imports reached $25.96 billion, up 12.59%. The four-month numbers tell a slightly softer story than October alone, because export growth over the full period has been stronger than October’s 2.8%. But the same imbalance is there: imports growing faster than exports, by about four percentage points.

Put it another way. In the first four months of the fiscal year, Pakistan spent $25.96 billion on imports and earned $11.34 billion from exports. The $14.63 billion difference had to be covered from other sources of foreign exchange. That is the arithmetic that sits behind every debate about the current account, the exchange rate, and the country’s external financing needs.

It also sits behind the wider question of how much Pakistan owes the rest of the world. Trade gaps that persist year after year add to the stock of external liabilities, and the scale of that burden was laid out in a recent World Bank assessment. For the background, see Pakistan’s external debt at $135 billion in the World Bank report.

What it means for the current account

The trade deficit is only one part of the current account, but it is the biggest part. The current account also counts services, remittances sent home by Pakistanis abroad, and other transfers. A wide trade gap can be offset if those other flows are strong, and that is why economists wait for the State Bank of Pakistan to publish its current account data before drawing firm conclusions.

That data comes a few weeks after the PBS trade figures, so the full October picture is still to come. Until then, the warning from JS Global’s Waqas Ghani is the clearest signal from the analyst community: if the trade gap keeps widening, and if global energy prices stay elevated, the pressure will show up in the current account and in foreign exchange reserves.

For ordinary households, the transmission from trade numbers to daily life runs through two channels. The first is the exchange rate. When the demand for dollars to pay for imports outruns the supply of dollars from exports, the rupee comes under pressure, and a weaker rupee makes imported goods, fuel included, more expensive. The second is policy. A widening external gap narrows the government’s room to cut interest rates or ease up on taxes and tariffs, because every policy choice has to be weighed against the need to keep the external account manageable.

Neither channel moves in a single month. The rupee does not fall because of one bad trade release, and policy does not change overnight. But four months of a widening gap is enough to shape expectations, and expectations are what move markets.

What business leaders are asking for

The business community did not wait long to respond. Khurram Ijaz, general secretary of the Pakistan Business Panel Progressive and a former president of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), expressed serious concerns about the October figures on 7 November and called for policy measures to enhance export competitiveness and support domestic industries.

His message is one exporters have repeated in different words for years. Pakistani goods need to be cheaper to produce and easier to sell abroad. That means competitive energy prices, easier access to raw materials, faster refunds and rebates, and trade policy that rewards exporters rather than taxing them at every step. The call now is for concrete measures, not another round of statements.

Whether the government responds, and how, is the next thing to watch. Trade policy in Pakistan has often moved in short bursts: a package here, a tariff tweak there. Exporters argue that what is needed is a sustained push, because competitors in the region have spent years building exactly that kind of support for their own exporters.

What happens next

Three dates and data points will tell us whether October was a blip or a trend. The first is the State Bank’s current account release for October, due in the coming weeks, which will show how far remittances and services offset the trade gap. The second is the November trade data, due in early December, which will show whether import growth is cooling or accelerating into the winter. The third is any policy response from the government on export competitiveness, which business leaders are now publicly demanding.

If November’s numbers show exports picking up and imports steadying, October will look like a rough month in a difficult year. If the gap widens again, the conversation will shift from monthly figures to the bigger question of how Pakistan pays for a trade deficit running at this pace.

For now, the facts are simple enough to state in one sentence. Pakistan bought $6.81 billion of goods in October, sold $2.93 billion, and the $3.88 billion difference speaks for itself. Everything else is a debate about what to do about it.

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By Bilal Ahmed | Updated: 7 November 2026