KARACHI, Nov 22: Afghanistan ranks 15th among top 20 countries from where Pakistan gets the bulk of export earnings. The five countries that come after Afghanistan are Japan, Australia, Bangladesh, Turkey and Portugal.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau statistics, Pakistan earned $169 million through exports to Afghanistan in the last fiscal year up from $140 million a year ago.

The statistics show that Japan ranked 16th among the importing countries with Pakistan’s exports totalling $166 million to that country.

Australia and Bangladesh ranked 17th and 18th, respectively, as exports to these countries totalled $101.3 million and $101.1 million in the fiscal year July-June 2000-01.

Exports to Turkey and Portugal stood around $98 million and $70 million, respectively, in the last fiscal year placing the two countries at the bottom of the top 20 states from where Pakistan gets the bulk of export earnings.

Exporters say Pakistan’s export to Afghanistan should go up if peace and orders is restored in the war-ravaged country. “We hope that our exports to Afghanistan will increase with a political setup taking place in Pakistan and peace returning gradually to Kabul,” said an exporter of food items to Afghanistan. Exporters say business relations with Kabul may increase if Pakistani banks establish their branches in the land-locked country. Two state- run Pakistani banks are in the process of opening branches there but officials say they are yet to get clearance from the central bank of Afghanistan.

Pakistan exports to Afghanistan include wheat and wheat flour, fruits and vegetables, handicrafts, engineering goods and cement, chemicals, tents and canvas, glassware and cotton yarn.

In the first three months of this fiscal (July-Sept 2002) Pakistan’s exports to Kabul also included medicines and pharmaceutical products, office stationary, iron and steel scrap, petroleum crude and petroleum products, paints and varnishes, plastic goods, tyres, iron and steel tubes and sanitary and house decoration articles.

Businessmen say with the reconstruction work picking up in Afghanistan exports of the above-listed items would further move up.

They say the proposed construction of a five-star hotel in Kabul by Aga Khan Foundation should also give a real boost to export of construction materials there from Pakistan. The Foundation said the other day it wanted to build a $25 million hotel in Kabul to help Afghanistan boost investment and tourism.

Lately Pakistan has realized the need to increase its intra- region trade and the government agencies, including EPB, have been tasked to work out pragmatic plans to achieve this objective.

Trade analysts and economists say Pakistan should accelerate its efforts to boost exports to countries like Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and China that offer enough growth potential.

Currently, India and Sri Lanka are not among the top 20 buyers of Pakistani goods and Pakistan’s export earnings from the two countries account for less than one per cent of the total.

But China ranks 11th among the top 20 buyers and the opening up of the Chinese economy offers enough opportunities for Pakistan to increase trade relations with it.