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Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Pakistan’s exports to Australia rise by 29 percent

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce, Textile, Industry and Production Abdul Razak Dawood said on Sunday revealed that the country’s exports were increasing and export to Australia grew by 29 per cent during 10 months of the current fiscal year.

Dawood said that the country had witnessed $52 million worth of more exports to Australia during July-April FY2021 as compared to the same period last year.

“We are glad to share that during Jul-April 2021, our exports to Australia increased by 29% to USD 229 million as compared to USD 177 million in Jul-April 2020. This is the highest 10-months export to Australia ever,” he tweeted.

“I encourage exporters to aggressively export to this relatively untapped market. I also commend the efforts of MOC’s Trade & Investment Counsellor and urge him to facilitate our exporters and investors even more”, he further tweeted.

“Alhamdulillah (Thanks God), Pakistan’s export for April 2021 stood at USD 2.191 billion. This is the first time since 2011 that our monthly exports have crossed the 2-billion mark for seven consecutive months, Dawood had tweeted last week.

The export growth of 129 per cent over April 2020 cannot be taken into account due to lockdown last year, he added.

Read More: Textile exports decline by 3.1 percent in February

According to statistics released by International Trade Centre’s Trademap.org, Pakistan reported greater imports of textile machinery in 2003 as compared to imports by Vietnam and Bangladesh.  The result of this boost in textile machinery imports could be witnessed in the subsequent years when Pakistan’s exports went back on the right growth trajectory.

In 2019, imports of textile machinery into Pakistan were lower than those into Vietnam and Bangladesh which was a welcome change. However, to enhance their global competitiveness and bolster exports in the long run, Pakistani exporters need to focus on capacity and product upgradation.

The rapid spread of Covid19 and the strict measures taken by the governments to quell it have had severe consequences for the major world economies and Pakistan was no exception.  A report by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), COVID-19 outbreak had affected the flows of containers from the country to the lowest level of approximately 12,000 in April last year. However, there has been a gradual improvement in the container shipment from the country since then.

Read More: Pakistan’s textile exports grow 30.4pc in March 2021

PM Khan has always acknowledged the critical role of exports in the national economy and is therefore, committed to extend all possible facilitation to the exporters and remove any hurdles that might come in the way of enhancing the country’s exports.  Under the ‘Make in Pakistan’ policy that was introduced by the government to promote export-oriented industrialization in the country, Duty Drawback rates for around eight sectors were revised upwards by the FBR. More than 434,000 claims were disposed of and approximately 7800 exporters have benefited from this initiative. A system of refunds was also streamlined by the current government to resolve liquidity issues of the exporters and industrialists.

Export facilitation measures resulted in an increase in the number of exports Goods Declarations (GDs) from 71,190 in July 2020 to 79,756 in Dec 2020. Though the current upward trend in exports is encouraging, this momentum can only be maintained through increased focus on the products and geographical diversification.