The trade balance widened from US$ 222 million in March 2007 to US$ 449.4 million in March 2008, the Central Bank said yesterday.
This was after expenditure on imports recorded a year on year increase of 32.5 percent which amounted to US$ 1.129 billion in March 2008, as against US$ 852.7 million for the same period the previous year, it said.
Earnings on exports grew by 7.8 percent to US$ 680 million in March 2008 from US$ 630.7 million for the same month last year.
Imports of consumer goods grew by 37.1 percent to US$ 255.3 million from US$ 186.2 million due to large increases in several categories of food imports such as rice, milk products and wheat.
"The surge in the price of petroleum, which increased by 70 percent to US$ 100.6 per barrel (in March), led the expenditure on petroleum to contribute more than half of the growth of imports in March 2008," the Central Bank said.
Driven by an increase in building material imports, the imports of investment goods recorded a 6.2 percent growth to US$ 240.9 million from US$ 226.8 percent.
Cumulative imports during January-March 2008 amounted to US$ 3.264 billion, an increase of 37.6 percent from US$ 2.373 billion for the corresponding period the previous year.
Significant increases in export earnings from tea and other minor agricultural products led to 29.1 percent growth on Agricultural export earnings from US$ 118.6 million in March 2007 to US$ 153.1 million in March 2008.
Export earnings from tea increased to US$ 106.5 million, an increase of 35.4 percent from US$ 78.7 million.
Industrial export earnings grew by 3 percent to US$ 516.5 million from US$ 501.4 million. Export earnings from the apparel sector grew by 8.2 percent to US$ 293 million in March 2008, from US$ 270.8 million.
"Apart from textiles and garments; rubber products, machinery and equipment were among the other industrial exports which have contributed significantly to the growth in exports," the Central Bank said.
Earnings from mineral exports increased by 2.8 percent to US$ 10.6 million from 10.3 million in March 2007.
Cumulative export earnings grew by 10.2 percent to US$ 1.878 billion for the period January-March 2008 from US$ 1.073 billion for the same period the previous year.
The trade deficit increased by 102.4 percent from US$ 222 million in March 2007 to US$ 449.4 million in March 2008.
The cumulative trade deficit had increased to US$ 1.386 billion for the period January-March 2008 from US$ 669.3 billion the previous year, an increase of 107.2 percent.
The Central Bank said that the negative impact of the trade deficit was mitigated by worker remittances which increased by 22.7 percent to US$ 261.7 million in March 2008 while the cumulative amounted to US$ 752.2 million for the period January-March, an increase of 23.5 percent from US$ 609.1 for the same period last year.
"The overall balance of payments recorded a surplus of US$ 416 million for the period January-March 2008, resulting in the gross official reserves increasing to US$ 3.518 billion by end March 2008, which is sufficient for 3.5 months of imports," the Central Bank said.
