The Government of Pakistan has been worried about the drop in textiles exports, and has hence decided to launch a probe to find out the reasons behind plunging exports despite its support to the industry through low-priced gas and electricity.
The decision was taken by Finance Secretary, Waqar Masood Khan in a recently held meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), as he feels the decline of textiles export is not justifiable and has demanded a probe to determine the actual consumption of cotton yarn by the textile mills. Furthermore, Finance Minister and ECC Chairman, Ishaq Dar suggested analysis of the data to dig out the reasons responsible for drop in exports.
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According to Commerce Secretary, Muhammad Shehzad Arbab, growth in exports of China, India, and Pakistan remained negative whereas Bangladesh observed positive growth. Although 54 per cent of the total exports from Pakistan comprised of textiles and garments, Pakistan’s share of textile and garments in the world exports was only 4 per cent. A few reasons that were cited for this drop were shift in demand patterns in prominent markets, poor Chinese economy, exchange rate problems, and weakening global commodity prices.
Apart from these, lack of trade supportive assistance like burdening regulations, manual customs procedures, and inadequate port infrastructure further deteriorated exports.
