Pakistani exports to US witness over 20% rise in Dec 2020, says PM's adviser

Pakistan's exports to the US had risen by 27% in Dec 2020 as compared to last year, Adviser to the Prime Minister for Commerce and Investment Razak Dawood announced Friday.

Taking to Twitter, the prime minister's adviser said that the exports to the US had gone up from $334 million in December 2019 to $425 million in December 2020.

"This is the first time that our exports to [the] US have crossed US dollar 400 million-mark for three consecutive months," Dawood disclosed.

Sharing more details, the SAPM said that from July to December 2020, the exports to the US grew by 18.4% — USD 2,412 million — as compared to USD 2,037 million in the same period last year.

"It is a great achievement by our exporters [and] I encourage them to strive to obtain a greater share of the market," Dawood added.

India, Bangladesh saw negative growth for Nov/Dec

A day earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that regional export trends for November-December 2020 put Pakistan ahead of India and Bangladesh.

According to the data shared by the premier, Pakistan's exports grew by 8.32% in November 2020 and by 18.30% in December 2020 year on year. Meanwhile, India recorded a negative growth of -9.07% and -0.80%, and Bangladesh saw its exports fall by 0.76% and -6.11% in November and December 2020, respectively.

PM Imran Khan congratulated exporters and the Ministry of Commerce for the "achievement".

Coronavirus and the global economy

When 2020 dawned, the global economy had just notched its 10th straight year of uninterrupted growth, a streak most economists and government finance officials expected to persist for years ahead in a 21st Century version of the “Roaring ‘20s.”

But within two months, a mysterious new virus first detected in China in December 2019 - the novel coronavirus - was spreading rapidly worldwide, shattering those expectations and triggering the steepest global recession in generations.

The International Monetary Fund estimates the global economy to have shrunk by 4.4% this year compared with a contraction of just 0.1% in 2009 when the world last faced a financial crisis.