July-January exports up by 22.7 percent

The country's exports have witnessed a record growth of 22.7 percent during ongoing fiscal period as compared to last year. According to the statistics issued by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) here on Tuesday, the cumulative exports for the period July-January 2010-11 totalled to $13.23 billion, against $10.78 billion of last year's corresponding period, showing an increase of 22.7 percent.
The country's exports in January, 2011, were valued at $2.329 billion, depicting 38.2 percent increase against $1.685 billion made in January 2010. Textile sector export figures have shown a phenomenal growth of 25.9 percent as goods worth $7450 million were exported during the period under review as compared to $5918 million made in last year.
Similarly, food group, manufacturing group, other items and petroleum and coal group witnessed 13 percent, 7 percent, 75.7 percent and 26.4 percent growth, respectively. The statistic show that cotton cloth and knitwear remained on top among 10 highest export value products during July-January period by registering over $1.3 billion exports.
All top five export items belonged to the textile group and made 45 percent of total exports, while remaining five major contributors, whose export value were over $340 million were rice other varieties, rice basmati, towel, textile madeups (excl towels and bedwears) and petroleum products. These top 10 items constituted 62 percent of the total exports.
The growth in export figures was accompanied by an increase in import figures, especially in the import of raw materials. Imports in January, 2011 were $3.44 billion, being 3.7 percent higher than imports made in January 2010. For the period July-January 2010-11 imports totalled at $22.55 billion as against $19.32 billion in the same period of last year, showing an increase of 16.7 percent. The statistics show that petroleum products were the top importing products, while crude petroleum was the second and 'other chemicals' was the third highest import products, depicting an increase of 10.5 percent, 21.9 percent and 11.1 percent respectively.
Other top import products were palm oil, other machineries, plastic materials, other food items, sugar, iron & steel and power generating machineries. The import of sugar increased by almost 3.9 times, while import of power generating machinery decreased by 29 percent.