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Mohammed Arifeen
Export during the fiscal year 2008-09 was disappointing as it slumped to $17.8 billion against the target of $22.1billion. On the other hand in the last financial year exports reached $19 billion mark. The poor law & order conditions, global economic crisis, financial crunch and persistent power outages marred the overall export trade.
Pakistan's share in the international export market fell by more than one-third to 0.3 per cent in 2009. Export has also shown negative growth of 7.4 per cent during Jul-Nov period of current financial year 2009-10.
Pakistan is considered to be the largest producer of cotton and the third largest consumer. For the last fifty years the textile and clothing industry had been the biggest driver of the export based industry. The industry continued to show impressive growth Year-on-Year basis until the financial year of 2006-07.
The major contributor to exports -textiles-- declined substantially. Textile sector share in export which was about 66 per cent in 2004, was slashed to 53.7 per cent in the financial year 2008-09. Textile exports during 2008-09 dropped from $10.6 billion to $9.6 billion. The major decline in terms of value in US dollar was witnessed in cotton yarn, yarn & other than cotton yarn, towels, tents/ canvas, bed wear, readymade garments, synthetic fabric, other textile products, carpets & carpeting, etc.
The country's export during Jul09-Nov10 recorded a decline of 7.5 per cent. Total export in the five month period of current fiscal was $7.61 billion as against $8.23 billion during the same period of previous financial year. Pakistan textiles sales abroad fell by 3.2 per cent to $4.20 billion. Non-implementation of Textile Policy and Trade Policy along with difficulties --as usual-- with power and gas shortages and worst law and order situation hampered the textile exports. Pakistan textile industry was not able to take advantage of depreciation of rupee against the currencies of major textile producing countries.
This year cotton cloth export has declined by 30 per cent to $665.7 million as against $949.5 million in the past year. Bedwear in the current year raked in $701 million compared to $755.5 million the preceding year, showing a decline of 7.2 per cent. Similarly knitwear made $764.5 million against $826.7 million depicting a decline of 7.5 per cent. Going ahead seafood export witnessed a negative growth of 12 per cent compared to the same period last year. To sum it up, over all food export declined by 22.5 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year. Among the food crops, rice export declined by 30.9 per cent, basmati rice by 48 per cent whereas exports of other varieties of rice went down by 8.1 per cent.
Export diversification is the need of hour to reduce the impact of high trade deficit. The high cost of doing business and imported raw material and expensive resource mobilisation have hindered export growth. Goods needed for value additions such as machinery, buttons, and zippers have to be imported at high cost as opposed to China, which have their own. Within the textile industry raw materials account for about 70 per cent of and the remaining 30 per cent includes garments and made-ups having no extra value addition to them.
Pakistan at this critical stage must enhance world market share of its core products. Major core categories are textiles, garments, raw cotton yarn, fabrics, garments, towels, art silk, and synthetics textiles. Other core categories are rice, wheat, leather, sports goods, wool, surgical instruments, and petroleum goods. The other major core categories identified are fisheries, poultry, fruits, vegetables, IT software, and services, engineering goods, gems & jewellery, marble and granite, etc.
In the above core product categories the textile owners must enhance manufacturing and marketing capabilities and efficiencies to achieve value addition. Export promotion for all type of products requires teamwork and all stakeholders whether small or big should work in unison to achieve the best desired results. The Pakistani embassies and consulates must play a vital role in meeting export target. Export of textiles to Europe, USA and Middle Eastern countries must be given top priority followed by other manufactured, engineering, servicing, agricultural, and food products.
All the export stakeholders must make their products appealing for foreign importers in terms of quality --as compared with competing countries' similar products. They must ensure that their quality exportable goods are of an international standard.
Textile Industry: Export Performance
2007-08 2008-09
Product (value mn$) (value mn$ ) % Growth
Raw Cotton 82.057 104.463 27.31
Cotton Yarn 1294.195 1105.835 -14.55
Yarn (other than cotton) 49.152 25.880 -47.35
Cotton Cloth 1932.704 1929.205 -0.18
Knitted Crotched Fabrics 71.555 63.567 -11.6
Hosiery & Knitwear 1831.178 1723.968 -5.85
Bedwear 1887.509 1709.566 -9.43
Towels 615.415 527.579 -14.27
Tents/Canvas 70.340 57.647 -18.05
Readymade Garments 1498.499 1247.179 -16.77
Synthetics Fabrics 489.982 319.483 -34.80
Other Made-ups 536.114 489.059 -8.78
Other Textile Products 274.001 224.424 -18.09
Carpet & Carpeting 215.44 145.381 -32.52
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