KARACHI: Exports of textile and clothing products recorded a 0.12 percent decline year-on-year to $1.13 billion in October 2018, while on month-on-month basis, textile sector exports recorded a growth of 10.34 percent compared with $1.024 billion recorded in September 2018, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.
For the first four months of the current fiscal year (July-October), textile sector exports surged a miniscule 0.41 percent to $4.407 billion as against exports of $4.389 billion in the same period last year.
In October, cotton yarn exports decreased 34.84 percent year-on-year to $79.04 million; knitwear exports rose 16.13 percent to $261.54 million; bed wear exports declined 0.37 percent to $187.38 million; readymade garments exports surged 7.62 percent to $210.887 million while cotton cloth fetched $184.21 million in October, down 1.21 percent over the same month a year earlier.
Going forward, textile exports are expected to improve on the back of favorable policies being planned by the current government for exporters, where they have already announced uniform gas prices for the textile sector. There are also discussions under way for possible decrease in electricity tariffs for the sector, reduction in import duties on textile raw material inputs, and efforts to increase cotton production from current low levels of 11 million bales to a target of 15 million bales. Moreover, a full-blown textile policy is expected to be announced in coming months.
However, the perennial issues plaguing the sector remain largely unaddressed, where lack of availability of system gas and costlier RLNG have forced several smaller mills to close operations, another negative for textile exports for the year.
Finally, analysts believe that while spinners will be able to pass on at least some of the additional cost burden due to demand for yarn in local markets, it will be more difficult for value-added goods’ manufacturers to increase prices in their predominant export markets.