Pakistan exported denim apparels to the USA worth US $ 103.78 million during January to June 2018 period. The country noted 13.22 per cent surge in its exports on the yearly note.
According to the latest figures released by OTEXA and analysed by Apparel Resources, Pakistan grew in Women & Girls (WG) jeans; denim skirts and denim jackets categories, while declined in Men & Boys (MB) jeans exports in the US market.
Men and Boys (MB) denim jeans fetched US $ 40.97 million (down 0.47%) for Pakistan through exports to the USA. The downfall was witnessed in June month as Pakistan just managed to ship MB jeans worth US $ 7.89 million in June ’18 as compared to US $ 10.64 million shipment in June ’17, down massively by 25 per cent on the yearly note.
On the other hand, Women and Girls (WG) segment remained on positive side and Pakistan posted a commendable growth of 24.10 per cent in WG category to clock US $ 61.54 million in H1 ’18.
Further, exports of denim skirts and jackets in the US market escalated by 76 per cent and 90.41 per cent, respectively though the export value was nowhere near to the denim bigwigs such as China and Bangladesh. Skirts tapped US $ 0.44 million for Pakistan, while Jackets valued at just US $ 0.51 million.
However, Pakistan has not been able to capture the market from China and Vietnam despite being a traditional cotton country. The reason being the recent surge in domestic cotton prices which made the apparels expensive.
The above-mentioned reason pushed Pakistan on back foot and that can be seen in the data too. The overall denim apparel import by USA was US $ 1681.18 million in H1 ’18 and Pakistan had just 6.17 per cent share in this import value which slid down from January to May period when Pakistan had 6.72 per cent share.
