ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: Textile manufactures exports rose to $2.76 billion, increasing their share in total exports further to 63.78 per cent during the first five months of the fiscal 2002-03, as compared to 63.42 per cent during the corresponding period of last fiscal.
As a constituent of total manufactured items, according to advance release of foreign trade data by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Thursday, the textile manufactures’ contribution further moved up to 70.05 per cent. During the same period 2001- 02, these had accounted for 69.71 per cent of total manufactured exports.
The growth of overall exports is also parallel to that of manufactured exports. The former, totalling $4.33 billion, surged by 15.91% and the latter ($3.94 billion), recorded an increase of 15.88%, over the corresponding period of previous year.
According to further analysis of the FBS data, manufactured exports accounted for 91.09% of total exports, up 0.15% from previous year.
The exports of textile manufactures reportedly surged by 16.57% in the dollar and by 9.31% in the rupee during the period under review. Evidently, this impressive performance cannot be credited to November 2002 when these registered a decline of 6.79% (dollar) and 7.67% (rupee) over the previous month.
The increase in exports was attributed to the momentum witnessed in the dying months of 2001-02 and initial period of current financial year.
This trend is visible in most of the items. Nevertheless, the improvement is unmistakable in comparison with the corresponding month of previous year. Thus exports of textile manufactures jumped 20.20% in dollars over November 2001.
In the perspective of July-November 2002, the only exception to the increase in exports of textile manufactures was the item “madeup articles” (including other textiles). These declined by 8.01%. But then their share ($133.18 million) in total textile manufactures is comparatively negligible.
Noteworthy is the spurt in exports of value-added items which have performed the rare feat of relegating cotton yarn ($402.68 million) to 6th position in terms of the accretion in dollars.
An increase of 2.55% (dollars) notwithstanding, a sharp decline in its unit price is indicated by the FBS data, compared to previous year. Moreover, in terms of the rupee, Pakistan economy suffered a loss of 3.83%, despite quantitative increase of 7.88%.
During the period under review, export of cotton cloth, which was on top, fetched $540.07 million, 28.65% more than last year, against quantitative increase of 19.48%.
The exports of knitwear ($450.68 million) increased by 19.93%, bedwear ($460.76 million) by 23.89%, readymade garments ($453.26 million) by 26.46%, towels ($113.81 million) by 2.18%, tents, canvas & tarpaulin ($17.15 million) by 5.30%, and art silk & synthetic textile ($189.97 million) by 6.67%.
OTHER MANUFACTURES: With exports amounting to $778.43 million, this category registered a growth rate of 0.37%. Nevertheless, their contribution to total exports receded from 17.98% in July- November 2001, to 20.76% this year.
The items which posted positive growth during the period under review included “others” in sport goods (33.46%), leather gloves (4.58%), other leather manufactures (1301.52%), chemical and pharmaceutical products (73.15%), engineering goods (23.08%).
An encouraging aspect is the improvement in export of non- traditional items such as auto parts, gems, jewellry and furniture, etc.
Others continued to gallop towards greater share in total exports. It stood at 9.33% as against 6.76% in the same period of previous year. Their exports during the period under review totalled $404.05 million — denoting an increase of 60.08% over the previous year.
PRIMARY COMMODITIES: In this category, the country exported 28,560 tons of raw cotton, which is 41.32% less than in previous year. The exports of rice registered a decline of 24.07%. The quantity of rice exported during the current financial year up to November was 528,143 tons — 24.07% less than during previous year. The figures show that both raw cotton and rice have fetched higher unit price this year.