ISLAMABAD
Pakistan’s exports continued to set milestones after its shipments to the United States crossed the $5-billion mark for the first time during the recently-concluded fiscal year 2020-21. The USA remained the top export destination with exports breaching the $5 billion worth of shipments in FY 2020-21, against the exports of $3.9 billion in the fiscal year 2019-20, showing an increase of 28 percent. The development comes after Pakistan witnessed record-high exports of $ 25.3 billion in 2020-21, including $ 15.5 billion in textile and $2 billion in IT services, in fiscal year 2020-21, nearly $4 billion higher than the $ 21.4 billion achieved in 2019-20.
According to the country-wise trade data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the United Kingdom appeared as the second major destination country during FY21, wherein Pakistan exported goods worth $2.047 billion against the exports of $1.64bn in FY20, marking a growth of 25 percent on a year-on-year basis.
This was followed by China, wherein the total exports to the country during the said period swelled by 23 percent on a year-on-year basis to $2.043 billion from the exports of $1.66 billion recorded in FY20.
Next in line are Germany and UAE where Pakistani exports pegged at $1.5 billion and $1.48 billion during FY21, respectively. Exports to Germany depicted a jump of 16 percent on a year-on-year basis, while exports to UAE dipped by 6 percent on a year-on-year basis.
Among other countries, Pakistani exports to the Netherlands during FY21 stood at $1.11 billion, up by 14 percent on a year-on-year basis, followed by Afghanistan and Spain with $983.29 million and $801.7 million respectively, the data revealed.
According to the data issued by the SBP on export receipts by commodities, textile products remained the major exportable goods for Pakistan as this group accounted for 58.44% of the total exports during the month of June 2021. The overall exports of the textile group showed a massive growth of 46.32% YoY to $1.45bn compared to $997mn recorded in the same period of last year. while, on MoM basis, the exports moved up by 16.65% in June 2021.
On a cumulative basis, during FY21, the textile sector witnessed an upsurge of 12.58% and stood at $14.4bn on the back of an increase in exports value of towels, knitwear, bedwear and readymade garments by 29.61%, 25.42%, 20.55% and 8.61%, respectively.
During FY21, the export of rice witnessed a meagre decline of 0.8% to clock in at $2.2bn as compared to $2.27bn in the corresponding period last year.
