Pakistan’s July-Jan exports fall 14.4 percent

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s merchandise exports fell for the seventh straight month in January, down 13.9 percent to $1.77 billion as compared to the same month a year earlier, official data showed on Wednesday.

In the July-Jan period of the 2015/16 fiscal year, exports were down 14.37 percent to $12.08 billion as against $14.11 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said.

Economists dubbed this a worrisome trend. Around Rs344 billion refunds, especially of textile sector that contributes more than half to the exports, have been pending with the government for years.

“It’s a highly disturbing development that Pakistan’s exports have been declining for the last several months, and yet the government paid little or no attention to arrest the declining trend,” said Dr Ashfaq Hassan Khan, ex-finance advisor.

“The government must resolve the refund issues of the textiles sector and also review the additional duties, imposed on trade sector and must urgently talk to the leading exporters to know their grievances,” Khan said. 

Pakistan’s exports have been continuously falling since July 2015.

In July last, they dipped 16.9 percent over the corresponding month.

In August, the decline was 3.5 percent, September (20.37 percent), October (11.38 percent), November (15.12 percent) and December (16.8 percent).

“The government has no focus on trade in its overall economic policy, as its federal budget, trade policy and Vision 2025 have no connectivity and commonalities to boost exports,” said Dr Abid Sulahri, executive director at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

“At the same time, the government has withheld billions of refunds, duty drawback and other payments that (are) not only hurting the exporters but also the SMEs (small and medium enterprises).” 

Seven-month trade deficit increased 4.31 percent to $13.6 billion as against a deficit of $13.07 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.   In July-Jan, exports dropped 14.37 percent to $12.08 billion and imports were down 5.38 percent to $25.72 billion.

In January, exports inched down 0.89 percent to $1.772 billion over $1.788 billion in December 2015, and were down 13.9 percent over January 2015.

Imports also fell 8.7 percent to $3.51 billion in January as compared to $3.84 billion in December 2015, and were up 15.4 percent over January 2014.

The government set an export target of $25.5 billion for the current fiscal year. The exports were recorded at $25 billion in the last fiscal year.