Tofail Ahmed yesterday told parliament the trade deficit of Bangladesh with Saarc members countries stood at Tk37,700.7 crore till April of the current fiscal.
He said during the 10 months of the current fiscal, Bangladesh earned Tk3364.9 crore from export to India while Tk38,105.4 crore was spent on importing goods.
During the same period, Bangladesh earned Tk381.2 crore from export to Pakistan while it spent Tk3175.1 crore on import.
Bangladesh earned Tk156.4 crore by exporting goods to Sri Lanka and spent Tk284.8 crore on importing from the same source.
The country spent Tk199.1 crore on importing goods from Bhutan and earned Tk29.7 crore from export.
The export earnings from Nepal was Tk161 crore and the import spending was Tk88.5 crore.
The country earned Tk29.5 crore from export to Afghanistan while imported goods worth Tk7.2 crore from there. From the Maldives Bangladesh earned Tk41.2 crore through export and spent Tk4.5 crore on import.
The commerce minister also said the trade deficit with the Saarc member countries in 2013-14 fiscal was Tk47,554.7 crore while it was Tk37,293.2 crore in 2012-13 fiscal.
Tofail Ahmed also told parliament that no gold had been imported commercially through legal ways in the last five years as no organisation had applied to Bangladesh Bank to do so.
“So, the government has not received any revenue from gold import during this period,” he told parliament replying to a question.
Tofail said there is a scope for importing gold commercially on condition of prior permission from the central bank as per the existing Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947.
The commerce minister said Bangladesh had earned foreign currency of US$ 28,144.38 million by exporting its products in the current fiscal till May last.
Replying to another query, he said the volume of export was US$ 30186.62 million with 11.69% growth in the last fiscal of 2013-14 while US$ 27027.36 million with 11.22% growth in 2012-13 and US$ 24301.9 million with 5.99% growth in 2011-12 fiscal.
He also said the export size was US$ 22928.22 million with 41.49% growth in 2010-11 fiscal and US$16204.65 million with 4.11% growth in 2009-10.
Responding to another query the minister said Bangladesh had imported rice worth about Tk3797 crore till April in the current fiscal year.
At present rice is imported from mainly India, China, Pakistan and Myanmar, he added.
Rice worth about Tk3796.8 crore was imported in between July and April of this fiscal while it was worth Tk2700.2 crore in 2013-14 fiscal, Tk240.1 crore in 2012-13, Tk 2186.9 crore in 2011-12 and Tk 5941.5 crore in 2010-11 fiscal.
