ISLAMABAD, March 14: Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan said on Tuesday that the export target for the year 2006-07 will be around $20 billion. “We would cross the target for next fiscal year as we had already acquired greater preferential market access for our products in various countries particularly, in the US, China and Sri Lanka,” the minister said.

Talking to Dawn he said that the target of $17 billion set for the current fiscal year would be achieved easily.

“The export proceeds will be in the range of $17 billion to $18 billion by the end of the current fiscal year,” he added.

The official statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) here on Tuesday showed that exports recorded a growth of 19.71 per cent to $10.577 billion during the July-Feb period of the current fiscal year as against $8.835 billion during the same period of the last year.

On monthly basis, the exports increased by 9.3 per cent to $1.274 billion during Feb, 2006 as against $1.166 billion in the same month last year. A 7.11 per cent growth was achieved in exports during the month of January 2006 over the same month last year.

For achieving the target of $17 billion of the current fiscal year, the export realization in the next four months (March-June) should be in the range of $6.423 billion.

The export realization during the March-June period of fiscal year 2004-05 was $5.582 billion. This means that even if exports recorded a nominal growth of $841 million during the next four months over the last year, the target would be achieved.

When asked about the low growth recorded in exports in February, the minister said that growth in exports every year remained at the lowest levels in the months of February and March.

“This would not affect the annual export target. We would achieve the target set for the current fiscal year,” he asserted.

The statistics, however, showed that exports recorded a growth of 32.14 per cent during the month of Feb, 2005 to $1.197 billion against $0.906 billion over the same month last year. A similar growth of 32.51 per cent was recorded during the month of March, 2005 over the previous month.

This showed that the trend of low growth was not recorded during the same months last year.

A senior official said that three main factors were responsible for the low growth realization in exports during the current fiscal year.

The levy of anti-dumping duty on bed linen, which had badly affected Pakistan’s export to EU member countries during the last couple of years, besides, substantial reduction recorded in prices of textiles and clothing in the international market.