Bangladesh's trade deficit has surged to nearly 14.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first three quarters of the current 2020-21 fiscal year as an increase in imports outpaced that in exports, showed the latest data from the central bank. In the July 2020-March 2021 period, the trade deficit was over 20 percent higher than in the same period of the previous fiscal year 2019-20, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data showed. The country's imports payment totaled 42.77 billion U.S. dollars, up 6.04 percent year on year, in the July-March period of the current fiscal year, while earnings from exports stood at 28.27 billion U.S. dollars, up 0.06 percent.
Bangladesh's trade deficit in the past fiscal year soared by about 12 percent year on year to nearly 18 billion U.S. dollars. As the growth in imports significantly outpaced exports which took the heaviest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladesh's trade deficit in the first three quarters of the current fiscal year soared greatly, said a BB official who preferred to be unnamed. He said Bangladesh has witnessed decreased export of goods and services amid the outbreak of COVID-19 since March last year. On Thursday, Bangladesh's Directorate General of Health Services reported 1,457 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 36 new deaths, bringing the total tally to 785,194 with 12,284 deaths.