ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: Pakistan’s textile and clothing exports declined by 25 per cent in December 2007 over the same month last year, said the statistic division on Friday.

This decline was witnessed in almost all categories of textile and clothing, both in terms of value and volume. The sector is facing stiff competition from other textile producing countries.

When contacted, commerce secretary Syed Asif Shah told Dawn that this decline was obvious in the wake of closure of factories for almost two weeks because of Eid holidays and assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and subsequent strikes. Mr Shah said export containers, stuck up at the ports, were shipped in the month of January.

During the current month, export proceeds will record more growth, which to some extent would offset the impact of the last month, he added.

He, however, said it would be very difficult to recover loss as a result of closure of the factories.

The statistics division showed that during the half year of the current fiscal, textile proceeds declined by 4.91 per cent to $5.228 billion from $5.498 billion over last year.

Export of textile products marginally declined by 0.51 per cent during the first five months of the current fiscal year as it stood $4.487 billion against $4.510 billion last year.

Product-wise details showed that export of readymade garments and knitwear witnessed a negative growth of 1.45 and 7.74 per cent, respectively, during the July-December period of the current fiscal year over last year.

Export of raw cotton, cotton yarn, cotton cloth, cotton carded and yarn other than cotton year declined by 14.90, 5.05, 10.85, 64.88 and 19.61 per cent, respectively, during July-December over the same months last year.

Export of bed-wear, towel, tents, and other textile material dipped by 10.91, 14.80, 4.52 and 7.44 per cent, respectively. However, export of art, silk and synthetic textile went up by 41.69 per cent and made-up articles, excluding towels, bed-wear increased by 28.49 per cent during the July-December period of the current fiscal year over last year.

The WTO in its recent study on Pakistan’s economy stated that Pakistani textile and clothing exporters are facing competition from other producers.

Until Pakistani exporters improve competitiveness of their products, go for more research and development and reduce the cost of doing business, it would be very difficult for them to compete with the products of China and India in international market.