KARACHI, April 28: Pakistan’s textile exports increased less than one per cent in eight months of this fiscal year to $5.208 billion from $5.158 billion in the comparable period of the last fiscal year, data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics show.
In overall exports of $8.85 billion during July-February 2004-05, the share of textile exports was about 59 per cent whereas during July-February 2003-04, textile exports constituted more than 65 per cent of total exports of $7.881 billion. This suggests that Pakistan is focussing on diversifying its exports base than in the recent past.
But the fact that textile exports earning in eight months of this fiscal year has remained almost unchanged at a year-ago level highlights the need for doing much more to increase textile exports in the post-quota regime that started on January 1, 2005.
The breakdown of textile exports during July-February 2004-05 shows that exports of more than 300,000 tons of cotton yarn fetched $626 million whereas in a year-ago period, exports of about 339,000 tons cotton yarn had brought in $740 million. In other words, the per ton export price of cotton yarn fell from about $2183 to $2086. Cotton yarn prices remained depressed in the international market because of higher cotton production.
During the first eight months of the current fiscal year Pakistan’s export of cotton cloth rose to $1.153 billion from $1.056 billion in the same period of last year. The country managed to secure this raise in the export of cotton cloth both by increasing the export volume to 1552 million square meters during July-February 2004-05 from 1481 million square meters. As the figures show the average per meter export price of cotton cloth rose to 74 cents in July-February 2004-05 from 71 cents in July-February 2003-04.
That Pakistan was able to fetch a higher per unit price for cotton cloth despite a fall in per unit price of cotton yarn makes a case for value addition in exports.
Exports of knitwear fetched $1.148 billion in eight months of this fiscal year up from $918 million in a year-ago period. This happened as exports of knitwear went up to 46.5 million dozen pieces from 40.5 million dozen pieces. The per-unit export price also increased to $24.7 from $22.7 during this period. This again shows that there is not only room for exporting more of value added products but at a higher price too.
FBS data show that exports of bed wear fell to $771.5 million in eight months of this fiscal year from $882 million in the same period of last year. This happened because of a decline both in export volumes as well as per unit price. Exports of bed-wear went down to 150,000 tons from 155,000 tons and the average price fell to $5140 per ton from $5690 per ton.
“Export volumes of bed-wear have come down because of anti-dumping duty and customs duty imposed by the European Union,” explains Mr. Shabbir Ahmed, chairman, Pakistan Bed-wear Exporters Association.
Currently the European buyers of Pakistani bed-wear have to pay 12 per cent customs duty that they were not paying till December last year under GSP. Besides, the EU has also imposed 13.1 per cent anti-dumping duty on Pakistani exports of bed-wear to the EU. “So, the total impact of the two measures is more than 25 per cent for the European buyers of our bed-wear items. That is why they compel us to lower export prices,” adds Mr Shabbir Ahmed explaining the fall in the per-unit export price of bed-wear.
He demands that the cash rebate the government has given to garment exports at the rate of 6 per cent of exports should also be extended to the exporters of bed-wear to help them survive in the international market.
Unlike bed-wear, exports of towels increased to $294 million in eight months of this fiscal year from $242 million in the same period of last year. What made it possible was an impressive increase in export volume that has offset a fall in the per-unit price. Pakistan exported 79,000 tons of towels during July-February 2004-05 up from $62,000 tons in July-February 2003-04 but the export price fell to $3721 per ton from $3903 per ton.
Exports of readymade garments declined to $645 million during eight months of this fiscal year from $655 million in a year-ago period because of a fall in the per unit price. Pakistan exported about 19.3 million dozen pieces of readymade garments during this period up from 18.05 million dozen pieces.
