Pakistan misses export target by over $4.5bln: Dawn

ISLAMABAD: With the rising cost of business and a slowing economy, Pakistan has missed its’ export proceeds target by a staggering $4.5 billion, suggesting a rapid shrink in the domestic market during the outgoing fiscal year, Dawn has learnt.

Contracting manufacturing growth, a main indicator of exports, is rendering thousands jobless, many of whom are already under pressure due to high inflation, lawlessness and uncertainty.

Provisional figures obtained by Dawn showed that due to a dip in export proceeds as well as substantial cuts in imports volume, the country’s trade deficit narrowed by 21 per cent to $16.49 billion in the outgoing fiscal year 2008-09 as against $20.914 billion last year.

Export proceeds dropped to $17.57 billion for the year 2008-09 from $22.1 billion target set for the same year. After witnessing successive shortfalls at the start of the year, the government projects export proceeds at $19.1 billion with a shortfall of $3 billion by the end of June.

Despite this downward revision, the government not only missed the revised export proceeds target but also fell short of last year’s export proceeds of $19.052 billion by eight per cent owing to policies undertaken during the year under review.

Analysts believed the greater cost of borrowing from banks, and low consumer demand in the international market for Pakistani products (particularly in the USA and EU) were to blame.

Pakistan’s exports to major markets USA, Germany, Japan, UK, Hong Kong witnessed negative growth.

With the massive decline in the oil price and some other essential commodities, the import bill dropped to $34.06 billion during the outgoing fiscal year 2008-09 as against $39.966 billion last year, showing a decline of 17.57 per cent.

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