The fall in imports was led by intermediate goods which fell 10 percent to 972.5 million US dollars while consumer goods fell 11 percent to 268.5 million US dollars.
The central bank said spending on non-food consumer goods fell by 15 percent and car imports fell 31.1 percent.
Investment goods rose 11.4 percent to 331.9 million US dollars with machinery rising 9.6 percent to 164.5 million US dollars and building material rising 23.3 percent to 93.7 million US dollars.
The trade gap grew only 2.1 percent to 865.0 million US dollars.
Exports of labour brought in 507 million US dollars as remittances up 22.4 percent.
Exports of listed stocks brought 4.7 million US dollars as portfolio investments, tourism services had brought 57.3 million US dollars and exports of state debt had brought in 128.2 million US dollars increasing the spending power of the domestic economy to purchase imports.In the five months to May exports were down 5.4 percent to 4,023.9 million US dollars, with agricultural exports down 11.8 percent to 893.7 million US dollars and tea down 10.8 percent to 537 million.
Imports were up 7.8 percent to 8,208.1 million US dollars with consumer goods falling 6.6 percent to 1,383.5 million US dollars.
Intermediate goods were up 4.1 percent to 4,821 million US dollars with petroleum up 20.3 percent to 2,168. Investment goods rose 34.2 percent to 1,989 million US dollars with building materials up 35.7 percent to 511.9 million US dollars.
The trade gap expanded 24.7 percent to 4,184 million US dollars by May.
Portfolio investments were 379.2 million US dollars, commercial bank foreign borrowings were 927.5 million US dollars, tourist earnings 397.1 million US dollars and inflows to the government 1,746.1 million US dollars.
Update III
