ISLAMABAD, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan's trade deficit with China decreased by 11.93 percent during last eight months from July 2018 to February 2019, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said Wednesday.

According to a statement from the SBP, the trade deficit decreased to 5.48 billion U.S. dollars during the first eight months of Pakistan's ongoing fiscal year ranging from July 2018 to June 2019 as compared to the trade deficit of 6.22 billion U.S. dollars in the same period of the preceding year.

The trade gap declined due to two reasons, including an increase in Pakistani exports to China and a drop in its imports from China, the SBP data showed.

The exports from Pakistan to China during the period under review increased by 3.8 percent to 1.15 billion U.S. dollars as compared to the exports of 1.106 billion U.S. dollars recorded from July 2017 to February 2018.

Similarly, Pakistan's imports from China also dropped by 9.43 percent to 6.63 billion U.S dollars in the reporting period from 7.32 billion U.S. dollars in the same period of last year.

On the year-on-year basis, Pakistan's imports from China went down to 686.1 million U.S. dollars in February 2019 against the imports worth of 780.6 million U.S. dollars recorded during the same month of last year.

Pakistan's incumbent government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan last year expressed a desire to boost the country's overall annual exports to 27 billion U.S. dollars from the existing 23.4 billion dollars in the ongoing fiscal year to end on June 30, 2019.

During a visit to Pakistan in September 2018, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi responded to Pakistani government's desire and announced to increase its imports from the South Asian country.

Local watchers said that the current drop in the trade deficit was mainly achieved due to the Chinese government's efforts to increase its imports from Pakistan.