‘Pakistan commodity exports fetch less revenue’

KARACHI: An international trade development agency has positioned Pakistan among the regional economies that rack up the lowest revenue from commodity exports.
“A developing country is considered a commodity dependent developing country when its commodity export revenues contribute to more than 60 percent of its total good export earnings,” a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Friday.
The agency, however, found that Pakistan’s commodity exports as percentage of merchandise exports are 25 percent, accounting for 2.8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). The percentage point is only below than Bangladesh at 7 in Southern Asia region.
Alone Maldives (93 percent), Afghanistan (87 percent) and Iran (84 percent) are shown as commodity-dependent countries in the region.
The report titled ‘The State of Commodity Dependence 2014’ revealed that commodity exports as percentage of merchandise exports are India (47 percent), Bhutan (43 percent) Sri Lanka (35 percent) and Nepal (28 percent).
“The exact magnitude of the unhealthy dependence that the economies of many developing countries have on exporting commodities is not always well understood,” the report said.
“The data reveal that while developing countries rely heavily on commodities, their commodity exports are in addition highly concentrated and export revenues dependent on a handful of primary products.”
Pakistan majorly exports food items in the commodity group as they account for 74 percent, followed by agriculture raw materials 11 percent, Ores, metals and precious stones eight percent and fuels seven percent.
The country’s leading commodity exports include petroleum oils, rice and cotton.
Comparatively, in India food exports account for 24 percent of total commodity exports.
According to the report, food imports eat major chunks of the foreign reserves. Iran comes at the first place with all its food imports value as a percentage of commodity import value is 63 percent, followed by Afghanistan (59 percent), Bangladesh (52 percent), Maldives (40 percent), Nepal (30 percent), Sri Lanka (29 percent), Bhutan (28 percent) and Pakistan (20 percent). India’s food imports value is negligible at only six percent.