ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s textile exports edged down in October 2025, slipping 0.57 percent to $1.616 billion, even as the sector showed a modest rebound from the previous month, official data showed Tuesday.
The month-on-month improvement, a 2.78 percent rise from September’s $1.57 billion, offered some relief to exporters, but the year-on-year picture remained weak. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics said key textile categories, including knitwear, towels, cotton cloth and cotton yarn, all posted declines compared with last year.
Knitwear exports fell 2.02 percent to $481 million, towels dropped 5.01 percent to $90.4 million, cotton cloth slid 7.86 percent to $143.5 million and cotton yarn dropped 4.57 percent to $56.5 million. Still, some products held firm. Bedwear exports grew 5.9 percent to $291 million, while readymade garments rose 2.45 percent to $370.8 million against the same month of last year.
Similarly, food sector exports drastically shrank 42.5pc to $430 million. Rice, one of the country’s top foreign exchange earners, dropped 55.1pc to $162.6 million, with basmati plunging 21.3pc to $54 million. Fruits exports declined by 8.1pc to $22.4 million, vegetables by 40.8pc to $11.4 million, and oilseed, nuts and kernels exports down by 64.2pc to $33.8 million. Meat exports were up by 8.1pc to $48 million, however fish and seafood declined by 10.1pc to $41.4 million.
Sports goods exports rose 13.6pc to $36.73 million, led by a 25.85pc spike in football shipments that stood at $22.93 million. Surgical instrument exports were up 4.4pc to $42.46 million, while cement exports were down by 9.9pc to $35.5 million.
On import side, petroleum group imports increased by 29.6pc to $1.37 billion in October 2025 over the same month of a year ago. Of this, crude oil imports were up by 77.3pc to $543.2 million, petroleum products increased 36.2pc to $543 million, and LPG imports increased by 3.33pc to $79.5 million. However, the LNG imports declined by 25 percent to $209 million The machinery group imports increased by 23.8pc to $919 million in October 2025. Of this, the imports of construction and mining machinery increased by 302 percent to $37.7 million, power generation machinery by 62.7pc to $93.3 million. Similarly, electrical machinery and apparatus imports increased by 31.7pc to $247 million, textile machinery up by 21.4pc to $42.9 million and agricultural machinery increased by only 0.8pc to $190 million. Telecom machinery imports however declined by 13.5pc to $203.7 million, with mobile phone imports down 17pc to $144.6 million.
Food sector imports increased 21.6 percent to $823 million. Of this, palm oil imports increased 17.2pc to $324 million, tea imports were up 9.1pc to $60.3 million, while pulse imports reduced by 45pc to $51.1 million.
Transport sector imports, however, jumped 94pc to $316.6 million. Under the complete knockdown/semi-knockdown (CKD/SKD) motor vehicle category, imports increased by 99.7pc to $305.8 million. The import of complete built units of cars increased by 23.4pc to $23.1 million, while the CKD/SKD cars imports was 15.1pc high to $171 million.
