ISLAMABAD, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan's mobile phone imports witnessed a sharp decline of 25.1 percent in January when compared with the same month last year, according to data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
Mobile phone imports into the country during January were recorded at 59.77 million U.S. dollars against 79.76 million U.S. dollars in the same month last year, the PBS revealed at its website on Monday.
However, on a month-on-month basis, the mobile phone imports increased slightly by 0.63 percent in January 2019 against the imports of 59.39 million U.S. dollars in December 2018.
Mobile phone imports also declined during the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal year from July 2018 to June 2019 as compared to the corresponding period of last financial year.
According to local market watchers, the drop was caused by the sharp surge in inflation, imposition of new taxes and regulations by the countrys federal government in 2018.
Pakistan imported mobile phones worth 423.82 million U.S. dollars from July 2018 to January 2019 as compared to the imports of 456.25 million U.S. dollars during July 2017-January 2018.
The imports of the countrys overall telecom sector also dropped by 10.58 percent by falling from the 876.12 million U.S. dollars last year to 783.45 million U.S. dollars during the current fiscal year.
