ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: Pakistan’s export of traditional products – carpets, sports, surgical, leather, engineering and footwear – recorded a more than 30 per cent decline during July-December period of the fiscal year 2006-07 as compared to the corresponding period last year.

Official figures compiled by the commerce ministry indicated that export of other commodities, like cutlery, gems, jewellery, furniture, auto parts and handicrafts, also dipped during the period under review.

The decline in the export of these commodities not only poses a threat to the government to reach the export target of $18.6 billion set for the fiscal year 2006-07, but it may also affect the labour intensive industries.

The government was only focusing on providing monetary and technical assistance to the already developed sector of textile related products, while neglecting these nascent industries, which were unable to compete with the highly developed industries of China, India etc.,—the main competitors of Pakistani products in international market.

The export of Pakistan’s traditional products once known for its quality in international market, like footballs, surgical goods and leather products, were losing market for its products for the last couple of years. The decline in export of these products is yet to be explored despite the fact that most of the sector enjoys exemption in customs duty and sales tax on import of machinery, raw material and utilities.

Official figures showed that the export of sports goods declined by 14.38 per cent during the period under review as against the same period of last year.

Of these, export of footballs declined by 16.89 per cent once considered a major supplier of soccer to world market during the period under review. However, export of gloves rose by 110.62 per cent during the same period.

The carpets, rugs and mats export recorded a negative growth of 18.12 per cent; and leather goods (garments and gloves) by 30.89 per cent during the first half of the current fiscal year over last year. Among leather goods, export of leather garments declined by 29.98pc, leather gloves by 20.08pc and other leather manufacturers by 57.61 per cent.

The export of footwear declined by 18.16 per cent during the July-December 2006 period over the same months last year.

Of these, exports of leather footwear dipped 17.30 per cent canvas footwear 14.99 and other footwear 25.22 percent.

A further analysis showed that export of auto parts declined by 2.38 per cent, surgical goods and instruments by 32.41 per cent, gems 12.60 per cent, jewellery 22.38 per cent, 4.59 per cent and handicraft 78.18 per cent during the period under review.

Moreover, export of engineering goods decreased by 1.27 per cent, cutlery 3.24 per cent.

Among the primary commodities, export of rice rose by 1.17 per cent and meat and meat preparation 83.19 per cent. All other primary commodities, including fish products, recorded a negative growth during the period under review over the last year.