The imports of the overall machinery group witnessed an increase of 30 percent during the first three quarters of the current fiscal year (2023-24) compared to the corresponding period of the last year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported. The total imports of the machinery group during July-March (2023-24) stood at $5,854.931 million against the imports of $4,493.283 million during the same period of the last year. The import of agriculture sector machinery and equipment surged by 102.31 percent from $30.198 million to $61.095; office machinery including data processing equipment 41.28 percent from $249.167 million to $352.029 million; electrical machinery and apparatus 68.69 percent from $1,1247.552 million to $2,105.047 million; telecom related equipment 117.90 percent from $744.971 million to $1,623.321 million; mobile phone 181.26 percent from $462.700 million to $ 1,301.388 million and other apparatus 14.05 percent from $ 282.271 million to $ 321.933 million. However, during the period under review, the import of construction and mining machinery declined by 4.47 percent from $66.236 million to $ 63.275 million, textile machinery by 63.68 percent from $286.371million to $104.007 million; power-generating equipment by 25.63 percent from $398.109 million to $296.093 million and other machinery by 14 percent from $1,470.344 million to $ 1,250.064 million, Meanwhile, on a year-on-year basis, the machinery group imports increased 139.62 percent during March 2024 compared to the same month of last year, from $338.816.727 million to $811.865 million. On a month-on-month basis, the machinery imports into the country went up 17.78 percent during March 2024, compared to the imports of $ 689.294 million in January 2024, according to the PBS data.