ISLAMABAD, June 4: Pakistan lost $2.324 billion on the import of seven items during the July-March period of the fiscal year 2005-06, over the corresponding period last year because of higher prices prevailing in the international market.

“Had the unit value of these items, including oil remained at the last year’s level, the import bill has been at $18.368 billion instead of $20.693 billion as recorded in the first nine months of the current fiscal year,” says the Economic Survey 2004-05 released here on Sunday.

The rise in international prices of commodities, including oil, affected Pakistan’s current account. The country paid $708.3 million more for import of petroleum products against figures for last year.

According to the survey, an additional bill of $1.206 billion was paid on account of import of petroleum crude during the July-March period of the current fiscal year over last year; an amount of $77 million on fertiliser; $78.4 million on plastic material; $51.5 million on medicinal products and $202.9 million on iron and steel products.

The survey says that over 88 per cent of the national exports are driven by quantity effect and the remaining 12 per cent are due to increase in unit value of exports (price effect). Because of increase in price of commodities this year, the loss was estimated at only $3.9 million. Pakistan succeeded in exporting more in volume and price effect was minimal.

The survey also suggested that Pakistan’s exports were highly concentrated in few items along with trading in a limited market of a few countries. Exports were highly concentrated in cotton, leather, rice, synthetic textiles and sports goods. These five categories of exports accounted for 74.5 per cent of total exports during 2005-06 with cotton alone contributing 58.4 per cent, followed by leather (6.1 per cent), rice (6.9 per cent) and synthetic textiles (1.2 per cent).

The survey says the degree of concentration remained almost unchanged during the current fiscal year. A further break-up reveals that almost all the export earnings of cotton group have originated from textile and clothing. The same degree of concentration, by and large, persisted during 2005-06.