By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s textile and clothing exports, the backbone of the country’s outbound trade, grew just 0.26% in the fiscal year through June, one of the weakest annual performances in recent years, as elevated production costs and the loss of key regional markets undercut an industry that accounts for roughly half of national exports.
Shipments totalled $17.93 billion in the 12 months through June, up from $17.88 billion a year earlier, according to provisional data released on Wednesday by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. In rupee terms, the gain was a steeper 0.69%, underscoring how currency depreciation has masked a more stagnant picture in dollar terms.
The tepid full-year result belies a sharp deterioration toward the close of the fiscal year. Textile and clothing exports fell 16.71% in June from a year earlier, to $1.267 billion from $1.521 billion, extending a run of monthly declines that has persisted since October with only brief upticks in January and April.
Exporters and officials pointed to two dislocations in particular: the suspension of trade with Afghanistan, which had grown into an export market worth close to $1.5 billion, and softening demand from the Middle East, where shipments to the United Arab Emirates — the region’s top destination for Pakistani goods — lost momentum over the year.
The performance adds to pressure on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s PML-N-led coalition, which has struggled to lift the country’s export base meaningfully over its four years in power. Pakistan’s total merchandise exports missed the government’s annual target by $4.87 billion and contracted for the fiscal year, even as textiles — historically the more resilient side of the trade ledger — failed to offset weakness elsewhere.
Mixed Fortunes Across Categories
The headline growth figure obscured a divided performance across textile subsectors. Readymade garments, the industry’s largest export category, rose 3.87% in value to $4.288 billion and climbed 5.55% by quantity, while cotton yarn exports jumped 12.40% to $765 million from $680.7 million a year earlier.
Other textile materials gained 8.67% to $790.86 million, and raw cotton exports — off a small base — nearly tripled to $2.6 million from $871,000.
Elsewhere, the picture was weaker. Knitwear exports slipped 0.88% in value to $4.966 billion and dropped 2.63% by volume. Bedwear was essentially flat, edging down 0.01% in value to $3.112 billion even as quantity rose 1.44%. Towel shipments fell 1.93% in value and 3.08% in quantity, while cotton cloth exports dropped 7.55% in value and 4.18% in quantity — among the steepest declines in the sector. Made-up articles excluding towels and bedwear slid 0.71% to $770.3 million, and exports of tents, canvas and tarpaulin fell 3.81% to $120.11 million.
On the import side, purchases of synthetic and artificial silk yarn rose 3.89% for the fiscal year, while imports of second-hand clothing surged 16.36%. Raw cotton imports, by contrast, tumbled 43.26% from a year earlier.
Oil Bill Climbs on Crude Prices
Pakistan’s energy import costs also rose over the period, adding further strain to the trade balance. The oil import bill increased 5.76% to $16.862 billion from $15.943 billion, driven chiefly by costlier crude purchases. Crude oil imports climbed 31.58% in value on a 12.78% rise in quantity, a gap that points to higher international oil prices rather than increased volume as the primary driver. Petroleum product imports rose 7.05% in value even as quantity edged down 0.50%.
Liquefied natural gas imports fell 36.10% for the year, while liquefied petroleum gas imports rose 3.21%. Telecommunications equipment imports jumped 27.97%, led by a 26.55% increase in mobile handset imports to $1.889 billion from $1.492 billion, reflecting continued strong consumer demand for phones despite broader import compression elsewhere in the economy.
Trade Deficit Widens
The textile sector’s soft performance came against a backdrop of broader export weakness and a widening trade gap. Pakistan’s total exports for the fiscal year fell 5.93% to $30.139 billion from $32.040 billion, while imports rose 8.14% to $69.761 billion from $64.507 billion — a combination that pushed the cumulative trade deficit to $39.622 billion.
In June alone, total exports fell to $2.252 billion, down 16.25% from May’s $2.689 billion and 9.08% below the $2.477 billion recorded a year earlier. The monthly trade deficit stood at $4.679 billion.
The divergence between rising imports and falling exports leaves Pakistan’s external accounts more exposed heading into the new fiscal year, with textile exporters — who have long served as the country’s most reliable source of foreign exchange — now facing the added burden of a lost Afghan market and softer Gulf demand just as production costs at home continue to climb.
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