Dhaka, Aug 12 (IANS): Bangladesh's trade deficit ballooned in fiscal 2014-15 that ended June 30 on the back of increased imports, a central bank official said on Wednesday.

The trade deficit in the fiscal surged 45.97 percent to about $10 billion compared to a year earlier, Xinhua quoted a Bangladesh Bank (BB) official as saying.

The official said the country's import payment was $40.69 billion, up 11 percent, in the last fiscal year while earnings from exports stood at $30.77 billion, up 3.3 percent, during the same period.

The gap between Bangladesh's export earnings and import payments in the July-May period of the last fiscal year was $9.46 billion.

Officials said remittances from nearly nine million Bangladeshis, living and working abroad, helped offset the impact of the trade shortfall and kept the overall balance of payments in surplus.

The BB data showed that in the 2014-15 financial year, the inflow of remittances stood at nearly $14.23 billion.