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Exports at $19.383 billion post 3.1 percent growth in 2009-10
GHULAM ABBAS
KARACHI (August 03 2010): The country's exports for financial year 2009-10 have been calculated at a historic figure of $19.383 billion, exceeding the $18.8 billion target by $0.58 billion, or 3.1 percent. Besides exports, Pakistan's imports also showed a slightly negative growth, of 0.3 percent, as it these declined from $34.822 billion to $34.710 billion during the financial year ending June 2010.
According to available data from Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), the country's exports showed a growth of 9.6 percent during July 2009 to June 2010 as compared to the same period in the fiscal year 2008-09. The trade deficit, which was around $17.13 billion in financial year 2009, also declined by $15.327 billion in fiscal year 2010.
Though the experts, keeping the increasing trend in exports, had expected the country's exports to rise to $19.5 billion by the end of June 2010, but these could rise to $19.383 billion. However, the current achievement of exports was slightly higher than the record $19.052 billion exports in the fiscal year 2007-08.
The highest monthly export in financial year 2010 was $1.819 billion in June. In July and August 2009 exports were recorded at $1.46 billion each while in September, October, November, December 2009 and February 2010, the export was recorded as $1.5 billion each. In January 2010 the country exported goods worth $1.685 billion while during March to May this year the exports recorded $1.7 billion per month.
According to the statistics, exports to Americas showed slight decline at $4.15 billion against $4.17 billion in 2008-09. However, with the growth rate of 3.74 percent, the country exported goods worth $5.13 billion to Europe (excluding Russia). A record growth of around 13.5 percent was achieved in the exports to Africa and Asia (including Russia) each.
The exports to Australia and New Zealand registered 8.04 percent growth, while exports to other countries/regions also showed 218.41 percent growth in the financial year 2010. The main drivers of the growth were Textile and Clothing, which recorded $10.3 billion mark, showing a growth of 7.05 percent over last year, while agro and food sector achieved $3.36 billion with the growth of 6.6 percent. In the same sector only rice earned nearly $2.3 billion in exports showing over 8 percent growth. Fruits and Vegetables also showed exports doubled as compared with last year.
The mineral and metal sector achieved $1.65 billion exports in financial year 2009-10 as compared to $1.13 billion in 2008-09 with the growth rate of 45.60 percent. The engineering goods and other manufactures showed a slight growth of 0.30 percent.
The country, through other sectors, achieved over $2 billion exports in the financial year ending June 2010. According to sources, though the country's traditional markets of the US and EU remained static, or even slowed down, its exports to the regions of Africa and Asia, as well as Russia, and the C.I.S. showed growth.
These figures and trends, they said, clearly suggested that the business community should change their traditional business outlook and explore non-traditional, innovative, value-added products, as well as non-traditional markets of Asia and Africa.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2010
Business Recorder [Pakistan's First Financial Daily]