KARACHI: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) said it expects Pakistan’s textile industry to achieve 20 percent growth in exports in the current financial year if government continued with the policy of regionally competitive energy tariffs.
APTMA Patron-in-Chief Dr Gohar Ejaz said, “Pakistan’s textile industry is expecting notable increase during FY23 with a growth rate above 20 percent given that the government continues with the policy of ‘Regionally Competitive Energy Tariffs’ for exports.”
Textiles posted a record increase of 25 percent in exports during the last fiscal year 2021-22, with an expansion plan of about Rs45 billion under the State Bank of Pakistan’s Long Term Financing Facility (LTFF) and Temporary Economic Refinance Facility (TERF).
“Pakistan’s textile industry plans to import 6 million bales of cotton this year from USA and Brazil,” Ejaz said.
Textiles that makes over three-fifth of the country’s total exports earned $17.62 billion in the eleven months of the last fiscal against $13.74 billion in the same month of last year, showing a growth of 28.26 percent, official data on textile export released so far showed.
In May 2022, year-on-year textile exports grew 56 percent to stand at $1.64 billion as compared to $1.05 billion in the same month a year ago, while month-on-month growth was down 5.6 percent.
The exports of this group stood at $1.73 billion in April 2022. In the textiles group, cotton yarn exports increased 24.2 percent during the period to $1.11 billion compared to $896 million in the same period last year, with May 2022 exports up 48 percent to $106.57 million over the same month last year. Cotton cloth exports increased 30.34 percent to $2.24 billion, knitwear 36.4 percent to $4.65 billion, bedwear 21.68 percent to $3.0 billion, towels 21.66 percent to $1.02 billion, and readymade garments exports grew 30.68 percent to $3.54 billion in these eleven months. Raw cotton exports went up by 10 times to $6.58 million.
Curtailing Pakistan’s trade deficit was one of the biggest economic challenge in fiscal year 2022-23 for the government. In case the government was unable to curtail the trade deficit, the country might remain under constant threat of default with its foreign exchange reserves not building up to a secure level, as per businessmen and industrialists. The SBP’s foreign exchange reserves dropped by $99 million to $9.718 billion during the week ended July 7 on external debt payments.
