Pakistan imports from India are growing again, even though the two countries have barely traded since the spring of 2025. Data from the State Bank of Pakistan show that Pakistan imported goods worth $61.7 million from India between July and September this year, up 69 per cent from the same period a year earlier.
Pakistan imports from India recover after the war
The State Bank records payments made by Pakistani banks for imports, broken down by country, and Pakistan imports from India show a clear rebound in its figures. From July to September 2025, payments for Indian imports totalled $36.6 million. After the conflict, monthly payments fell from $20 million in April 2025, just before the four-day war, to $9.2 million in June and $8.2 million in July, before recovering to $19.6 million in September. Monthly averages suggest payments have largely recovered: $19.3 million in the 12 months before the conflict and $19.1 million in the 13 months from September 2025.
Over the full 2025-2026 fiscal year, which ended this June, Pakistan paid $203.8 million for Indian imports, 7.6 per cent less than the previous year. Government trade data, which break down imports by commodity, put the value of imports in the latest quarter slightly lower, at $62.6 million, compared with $66.6 million a year earlier. The two sets of figures measure different things: the central bank tracks payments, while the government data track goods by commodity. On the payments measure, Pakistan imports from India have returned to roughly their pre-war level.
Medicines dominate the trade
Organic chemicals and pharmaceutical products accounted for 96.2 per cent of imports from India in 2025-2026, compared with 93 per cent the previous year, according to government trade data. The largest category was vaccines, blood products and similar items, worth $93.6 million, up from $70.3 million. Within this group, imports of vaccines for human use rose to $32.3 million from $11.1 million. The pattern shows that Pakistan imports from India are driven less by general trade than by a narrow set of medical goods.
Khaqan Najeeb, a former adviser to Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance, said the reliance was driven by price and supply. He told Al Jazeera that India has developed a competitive pharmaceutical industry, particularly in active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are essential for medicine manufacturing. Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry has long sourced some of these inputs from India because of competitive prices, product availability and geographical proximity, he said. The dependence on Indian suppliers explains why Pakistan imports from India have held up even while formal trade stays suspended.
How Pakistan imports from India continue under the ban
Restrictions on Pakistan imports from India predate the 2025 conflict. On August 9, 2019, days after India revoked the special autonomous status of India-administered Kashmir, Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce banned the import of goods originating in India or shipped from the country. Less than a month later, it exempted therapeutic products regulated by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan. After the Pahalgam attack in April 2025, in which gunmen killed 26 people, Pakistan’s National Security Committee imposed further restrictions, saying all trade with India, including through any third country, was suspended.
Muhammad Zubair Motiwala, a former chief executive of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, said some Indian goods still entered Pakistan through third countries. He told Al Jazeera that Indian goods come through Dubai and Malaysia and other places, but Pakistan imports from India are still counted by country of origin. Najeeb cautioned against drawing firm conclusions about routes, saying some supplies may reach Pakistan through international supply chains but the precise routes and volumes are not publicly established. A Drug Regulatory Authority official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pakistan would import from India if needed in the national interest, and that this was the factor that mattered most.
Could Pakistan buy the same goods elsewhere
India accounted for only about 0.3 per cent of Pakistan’s $64.5 billion total import bill in 2025-2026, according to State Bank data. Pakistan paid $19.5 billion for imports from China, its biggest trading partner. But the pharmaceutical sector is a different story: in 2024, before the four-day war, India was Pakistan’s second-largest supplier of pharmaceuticals, marginally behind Belgium, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Motiwala said replacing Indian suppliers could add 40 to 50 per cent to costs for some businesses, and that he wanted trade to reopen. The cost gap is one reason Pakistan imports from India have kept flowing despite the ban. Najeeb said a gradual and mutually agreed resumption of trade could be examined, beginning with areas of clear economic and humanitarian benefit. He added that economic considerations cannot be separated from the political and security environment, and that any resumption would depend on conditions allowing it.