Daily Times

Minister for Commerce Syed Naveed Qamar on Thursday informed the Senate that the country’s exports had shown 5.7 percent decrease during the period of July-December 2022 as compared to the same period last year. Responding to various questions during Question Hour, the minister said that high international commodity prices and global demand contraction in Pakistan’s export destinations (China, UK, and US), suboptimal production by export-oriented industries, export supply chain disruption caused by floods specially cotton and rice, liquidity issues of exporters, high cost of financing and disruption in provision of energy at concessionary rates to export-oriented sectors were few reasons in the decline of exports. He said, The government is going in International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and as per the lender conditions, we have to withdraw subsidies given for export oriented sectors.” “Moreover, we are not facing food insecurity as we have sufficient stock but global recession and other factors may cause downward trend in country’s exports.” Responding to another question, he said, “Pakistan exports has reached historical high level of $ 31.8 billion in FY 2021-22, having an increase of 26 per cent as compared with FY 2020-21 owing to government’s unprecedented support to export oriented sectors to reduce their cost of manufacturing and enhance exports during last three fiscal years. Sharing the breakup of last three years, the minister said that total country’s exports stood at $ 21.4 billion in fiscal year 2019-20, $ 25.3 billion in 2020-21 and $ 31.8 billion. To a separate question, Naveed Qamar replied, ” Pakistan’s exports to China under China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) in FY 2021-22 is registered to the tune of $ 2.49 billion.”