LAHORE, July 29: The declining cotton prices in the local and international markets are expected to push up export of woven garments from Pakistan in the next six months or so, say industry sources.

The exports of woven garments dropped by 8.2 per cent to $1 billion in 2003-04 from $1.09 billion the previous year, says the Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters (PRGMEA).

"The exports have declined during the last fiscal year chiefly because of two factors, higher cotton prices and lack of social compliance. Though bigger units (which are social compliant) were able to cope with the effects of the increased cotton prices, the smaller ones failed to maintain the momentum or get orders enough to compete in the international markets," says Pervaiz Hanif, the former PRGMEA chairman.

Talking to Dawn on Thursday, he said the woven garments sector is far better prepared for the international competition than the knitwear industry, which is struggling for survival due mainly to over-capacity and falling unit rates.

"Though our exports have dropped, we didn't lose on account of unit prices. Actually, in certain products we fetched better unit prices in the fiscal year 2003-04 than the previous one," says Mr Hanif. "In fact the higher unit rates fetched by certain products more than made up for the decrease in some other categories."

He was of the opinion that the decrease in the cotton rates in the international and local markets would enable the exporters of the women readymade garments to "regain the ground lost last year in the next six months or so."

It may be recalled that the Aptma has recently called upon the government "to intervene and stabilise the market" as buyers were insisting to slash the rates of Pakistani yarn and fabric in view of declining cotton prices.

The Aptma officials say the "crisis" was though likely to last during the first quarter of 2004-05 as new crop would start arriving this October, its impact could last through the entire fiscal year.

Aptma chairman Waqar Monnoo had told Dawn a few days back that each Aptma member mill would lose about Rs60 million between July and September as these had procured cotton at an average price of Rs32,000 per 37kg last year and were now not able to "recover the cost due to reduced yarn and fabric prices."

"The crisis triggered by decreasing cotton rates for exporters of basic textiles is not going to hit exports of woven products," Mr Hanif says.