ISLAMABAD, Nov 6: Pakistan’s exports rose to $3,974.20 million during the period July-October 2003, up 14.20 per cent from the same period last year.

In Pakistani currency, according to the foreign trade figures in aggregate released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Thursday, the exports stood at Rs229.41 billion, registering an increase of 10.98 per cent.

Thanks to the continued stridency in exports, the trade gap was further narrowed to $309.59 million, which was 1.60pc less than the trade gap for the first four months of 2002-03. The appreciation of the rupee impacted on the trade gap by reducing it by 4.51pc. In absolute terms, the trade gap amounted to Rs17.85 billion as against Rs18.69 billion.

The period under review saw continued rise in imports, albeit by slower rate. These amounted to $4,283.80 million (Rs247.26 billion), up 12.89pc from the corresponding period of previous year. In Pakistani currency, these went up by 9.70pc.

The exports performance stands out further from the angle of the fraction of imports covered. It stood at 92.77pc in July-October as against 91.70pc of the previous year.

The export target for 2003-04 has been fixed as $11.2 billion. During the first four months of the year, 35.48 per cent of the target was achieved. This places the exports ahead of the target when the portion of the year exhausted up to October was 3.33pc.

Nevertheless, a slackness in the pace of exports is indicated in comparison with September 2003 when exports were 3.52pc higher than in October 2003 ($1,006.54 million). As compared to October 2002, however, exports in October 2003, registered an increase of 12.87pc.

As regards imports ($1,171.34 million) during October 2003, these show an increase of 8.70pc over the previous month (Sepember 2003) and of 15.06pc as compared to the corresponding period previous year.