ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: Textile manufactures exports surged by 15.64 per cent to $2,602.92 million during the period July-October 2003, as compared to the corresponding period of previous year, according to provisional foreign trade statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Monday.

These accounted for 65.50 per cent of total exports ($3,974.21 million), up about seven per cent from the same period of previous year. As proportion of manufactured exports also, textile manufactures further raised their share to 71.38pc as against 71.33pc in July-October 2002.

As regards manufactured exports, these amounted to $3,646.35 million, registering a growth rate of 15.57pc during the period under review.

A little over 31pc of the proceeds from exports of textile manufactures were contributed by the intermediate products — cotton yarn and cotton cloth. Indicating continued surge in value-added products, this contribution was down by nearly 2pc.

Another noteworthy feature is the continued increase in unit prices of almost all the categories of textile manufactures.

This is explained mainly by 11.94pc drop in the quantity of yarn exported, reducing the foreign exchange earnings ($310.97 million) by 1.26pc, in spite of 16.56pc increase in the proceeds of cotton cloth export ($497.07 million). In quantity, the figures show an improvement of 4.19pc.

Not very far behind cotton cloth were knitwear ($483.62 million) and bedwear ($488.48 million). In quantity, their exports went up by 29.42pc and 20.44pc but the foreign exchange fetched by them was up by 32.11pc and 25.75pc, respectively.

The other textile manufactures that registered increase in exports both in quantity and value were: Towels with proceeds amounting to $120.32 million, denoting an increase of 15.85pc from only 3.26pc increase in quantity; art, silk and synthetic textile, the quantitative exports of which surged by 4.44pc, fetching foreign exchange worth $193.62 million, up 20.11pc from the previous year; and tents, canvas and tarpaulin’s export earnings increased by 9.38pc to $18.06 million against 17.88pc increase in quantity. It thus became the only item among textile manufactures to see substantial drop in unit price.

Readymade garments were the only exception to the general trend, albeit posting continued improvement in unit price. Thus while the quantity of their exports plummeted by 20.21pc against only 2.83pc decline in exporting earnings ($347.99 million).

OTHER MANUFACTURES: This category, with a large inventory of items, continued to show a negative trend. Their exports totalled $664.38 million, down 1.75pc from the corresponding period of previous year. As a result, their contribution to overall exports fell from 17.61pc of the first four months of 2002-03 to 16.72pc in July-October 2003.