ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s current account balance swung into a surplus of $424 million in July 2020 after posting a deficit of $100 million in last month.

The current account balance improved by 244% in July as compared to the current account deficit of $613 million in same month a year ago, according to a data released by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday.

This is the fourth monthly surplus since last October, the Central Bank said in a statement.

Strong turnaround is due to a continued recovery in exports and record-high remittances, with support from several policy and administrative initiatives by SBP and government, it added.

In July the oversees Pakistanis transferred record remittances worth of $2.768 billion in the corresponding month which is the highest ever amount for the country in a single month while in same month of last year the remittances were recorded at $2.028 billion.

According to the data, the Current Account Balance without official transfers also witnessed a surplus of $401 million in July as compared to the deficit of $716 million in same month of last year.

Balance of trade in goods plunged by 11.78 percent from $1.968 billion in July 2019 to $1.736 billion in July this year.

Similarly, balance of trade in services also narrowed by 13.8 percent to $362 million compared to $420 million in July 2019.

As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), the current account balance witnessed a surplus of 1.9 percent in the first month of current fiscal year as opposed to deficit of 2.8 percent in the same period of last year.—APP