LAHORE: After two consecutive months of seeing a slight increase in export numbers, Pakistan’s textile exports have once again turned negative on a month-on-month basis.
According to the latest data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on Monday, textile group exports for February 2024 fell by 3.31% compared to January 2024, with the February figure at $1.41 billion against January’s $1.46 billion.
In a year-on-year comparison, the export of textile products managed to remain in positive territory and showed an increase of 19.20%. Export figures for February 2023 were recorded at $1.18 billion.
The textile industry is the cornerstone of Pakistan’s economy, with stakeholders claiming about 60% of the total. However, despite this important role, it is not performing as expected and the situation is deteriorating.
After almost a year of negative export figures, the sector entered positive values in December 2023. However, positive readings only remained for two consecutive months before returning to negative readings.
A breakdown of the data shows that raw cotton exports remained flat at $0 billion in February 2024, a month-on-month decrease of 100%.
Cotton yarn exports for February 2024 were $78,428 million, down 3.46% from January’s $81,295 million. However, they grew by 41.16% year-on-year with February 2023 figures of $55,597 million.
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Exports of cotton fabrics increased by 8.63% in February 2024 ($173,501 million) compared to January 2024 ($159,719 million) and grew by 12.13% YoY.
The knitwear sector also remained negative with data for February 2024 at USD 335,964 million against USD 365,050 million in January 2024, a decrease of 7.97%. However, it showed a year-on-year increase of 21.24%.
The bed linen sector exports also fell by 3.27% month-on-month with data for February 2024 at $243,823 million compared to $252,076 million in January 2024. However, they increased by 24.53% year-on-year, with February 2023 at 195,800 million dollars.
On a month-to-month basis, the apparel sector decreased by 7.92%, with February 2024 figures at $307,000 million compared to $333.411 million in January 2024. However, it too was able to show a 20.32% year-on-year increase.
The breakdown of textile group data further suggests that almost all value-added sectors remain in the negative zone. There could be many reasons behind this, one of which is the traditional excuse of the stakeholders on higher energy costs, which makes Pakistani products uncompetitive.
Another reason is the lack of innovation or added value in textile products. Most of Pakistan’s textile entrepreneurs continue to sell the same old fashioned products in the global markets.
These old products are competitively priced, with small margins. Many economists believe that unless Pakistan finds new markets with a focus on value addition as per global demand, it will be very difficult for this sector to increase its share in the country’s total exports.
