Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI, has expressed his worries that Pakistan’s exports have decreased by a significant 24 percent in the month of July 2022 on a Month-on-Month (MoM) basis. It is pertinent to note that exports have posted a MoM negative growth after a period of 22 months, i.e., the first time after August 2020, he added.
Irfan Iqbal Sheikh explained that the primary reasons for the disastrous export numbers are unavailability of industrial raw materials due to unavailability of dollars& other restrictions on imports; unbearable costs of electricity, gas, and petroleum products; unfavourable ease of doing business environment, and political & policy upheavals. FPCCI Chief maintained that this year we should aim for an export target of $37 – 38b; however, given the current circumstances, it appears that we might not even be able to sustain the FY22 level of $31.845b. He added that only the textile sector may witness a decline by the large margin of $2 – 3b in FY22; which is more than 10 percent of their total exports.
Irfan Iqbal Sheikh has demanded immediate intervention and remedial measures by the government to arrest the decline as export proceeds fell on a Year-on-Year (YoY) basis as well by 5.17 percent in July 2022 to $2.21b from $2.34b in July 2021. On a MoM basis, exports clocked at $2.219b in July 2022 as compared to $2.918b in June 2022. Irfan Iqbal Sheikh has proposed that the country needs the following transformative measures: (i) an industrial package to increase exports and promote import substitution; (ii) an IT package to tap the enormous potential in exports of IT services; (iii) bringing the interest rate on export finance scheme (EFS) back to 3 percent & on long-term financing facility (LTFF) to 5 percent and (iv) radical improvement in the cost of doing business & ease of doing business indices. President FPCCI has proposed that all political parties should sign a ‘charter of economy to insulate trade & economy from political instability and ensure consistency in economic policies. He also extended his full support from the platform of the apex body to facilitate the materialization of the charter of the economy. We cannot play politics with the economy anymore, he added.