M RAFIQUE GORAYA

LAHORE: Textile exports continued their downward trend, showing a monthly decline of 10 percent since the beginning of FY 2011-12 and the overall textile exports registered a loss of $124.137 million in April this year against the same period last year.

Pakistan exported textile products worth $1.140292 billion this year, whereas in April 2011, it exported goods valued at $1.2644219 million.

According to the export data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics for April 2012, cotton cloth export dipped by $21.5 million in relation to figures for last year. Pakistan exported 158.758 million square metres of cotton cloth against 221.876 Sq Mtrs in April last year.

Knitwear was another value-added chain that was 19 percent negative, down from $191.885 million to $155.978 million (a net loss of $35.9 million).

Export of readymade garments fell from $168.446 million to $127.722 million (minus 24 percent) causing a loss of $40.724 million, quantity-wise the shipments decreased from last year's 9.529 million dozen to 7.987 million dozen in April this year

Export of art, silk and synthetic textile also posted 24 percent loss, declining from $80.903 million to $61.654 million in April 2012.

Textile sector suffered a net loss of $41.321 in the export of bed-wear that dropped from $183.552 million to $142.231 million (minus 23 percent) in April 2012. Pakistan exported 21,133 million Kgs of bed-wear against last year's quantity of 23,693 million kgs.

However there was an increase of about $20 million in the export of raw cotton, up from $50.627 million to $70.613 million. Pakistan exported 42,639 million kilograms of raw cotton in April 2012 against 14,595 million Kgs in April 2011: quantity-wise there was an increase of 185 percent

Pakistani exporters also earned $18.637 million more from the export of other textile materials in April 2012.

There was not much difference in cotton yarn export earnings in April 2012 other than that Pakistan exported 58.49 million kilograms of yarn against last year's 35.033 million Kgs, earning almost the same amount of nearly $182.137 million.

FBS data indicated that Pakistan's textile exports suffered an overall loss of $ 1.076 billion from July to April 2011-12 over the corresponding period of FY 2010-11. The exports included raw cotton, cotton yarn, cotton cloth, cotton carded or combed yarn other than cotton yarn, knitwear, bed-wear, towels, tents, canvas and tarpaulins, ready-made garments, made-up articles, art, silk and synthetic textile.

Pakistan's exports for the first 10-month of FY 2011-12 were worth $10.14341 billion against $11.219777 billion in last year's corresponding period. Cotton yarn exports declined from $1.879 billion to $1.451 billion, Knitwear from $1.87 billion to $1.624 billion, bed-wear from $1.685 billion to $ 1.453 billion and towels from $607,753 million to $556.493 million.

Sources in the textile industry told Business Recorder that during FY 2010-2011, Pakistan exported record textile goods worth $14 billion and the government had fixed a target of $16 billion for textile exports during FY 2011-2012.

However they expressed the fear that because of financial problems in the European markets and crippling energy crisis in the country, Pakistan's textiles exports "may not exceed $12 billion till June 30 this year, incurring a loss of $4 billion from export projections".