KARACHI: Textile exports rose eight percent to $6.642 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year of 2017/18 as exporters availed the government’s incentives to boost exports.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data showed on Tuesday that textile exports amounted to $6.146 billion in the corresponding period a year earlier.
Value-added sector, which accounted for more than 55 percent of textile exports, also experienced decent growth, fetching nearly four billion dollars in exports’ revenue.
PBS data showed that knitwear exports recorded a double digit rise of 13.38 percent to $1.335 billion in the July-December FY2018. Export of bedwear increased 6.22 percent to $1.124 billion.
Readymade garments exports surged 13.52 percent to $1.248 billion during the period under review.
Exports of cotton remained flat at $1.066 billion in the first half.
Total exports, during the July-December period, amounted to $11.001 billion.
Government expected to achieve $23 to 24 billion in exports revenue in FY2018 as export sector, buoyed by tax incentives for cotton import and textile exports, was energised to bring up foreign inflows in the country.
Rupee depreciation of over 10 percent last month would also improve competitiveness of Pakistan’s products in the international market.
The central bank also supported the government’s export target and even revised up the country’s annual export target in its latest quarterly economy report.
Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Miftah Ismail, in a meeting with textile exporters on Tuesday, said the government would take further measures to maintain upward trend in exports and speed up processing of tax refunds and drawback cases to resolve the industry’s liquidity issues.
“The government has taken important measures for enhancing exports and would extend all possible support to the textile industry…,” Ismail said in a statement.
In December, textile exports rose 10.2 percent year-on-year and marginally increased 1.1 percent month-on-month to $1.132 billion. Exports of knitwear, bedwear, towels and readymade garments improved during the last month.
PBS data further showed that other big ticket was food sector that earned the country $1.932 billion in exports revenue during the first half of the current fiscal year, depicting 16.8 percent increase over the same period last fiscal year. Rice was the key exportable product in the food sector, fetching $843 million in the July-December period, up 18.32 percent.
In July-December, the country exported 484,834 tons of sugar with $181 million of exports revenue as surplus sweetener stock was available ahead of crushing season, starting from November last year.
Major exports took place in the past two months. Meanwhile, imports also soared 18.9 percent to $28.94 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal year.
Oil import was the major spending with import bill of petroleum products standing at $6.675 billion in July-December FY2018, showing a rise of 33.4 percent over the corresponding period a year ago.
Machinery import fell 3.1 percent to $5.494 billion during the period under review as there seemed to appear a slowdown in new power projects as the recently-established electricity plants are about to add 10,000 megawatts to energy grid this year, set to make the country surplus in energy production after meeting of local demand of almost 20,000 megawatts.
Import of power generation machinery sharply fell 37.7 percent year-on-year and decreased 22.6 percent month-on-month in December.
There was 19.2 percent rise in import of agriculture and other chemicals amounting to $4.284 billion in July-December. Food imports increased 13.1 percent to $3.239 billion, followed by metal group import ($2.568 billion), transport ($2.012 billion) and textile ($1.378 billion).