Pakistan has suffered a trade deficit of $11.4 billion during July-December period of the current fiscal year as it faced a trade deficit with 81 countries including the world leaders, like China, Japan and Korea and also from developing countries like Morocco, South Africa, and Belarus.
According to experts, the reason for trade deficit with large number of countries, including some least developed, is the absence of engineering exports, which has nearly 70 per cent share in the international trade each year. Pakistan’s exports mainly consist of various products of textiles that are largely exported to USA, EU and Japan which were tapped in due to the textile quotes before the advent of free trade era in 2005. Textile exports increased significantly during the last fiscal year due to the increase in commodity prices because of the decline in the global cotton production. With higher international cotton yields, the advantage is over. Pakistan needs to invest in the value added sector and look for markets in Asia and Africa as present economic crisis in EU and US will not help in increasing textile exports. The government is trying to diversify its exports, but without developing the huge domestic market, its efforts would not yield desire results, as locally successful products and brands could easily make it to international markets. Successive governments have failed to promote the most potential agriculture processing industry, as large quantity of fresh vegetables and fruits could be exported in the food deficient Middle Eastern countries. Similarly, process grains could be easily exported to Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asian States. The meat and dairy sector remains another untapped market, whose packed products could be exported from a region expanding from East Asian states to North African states; majority of which are meat and dairy deficient and have huge demand for meat and dairy products, experts said, adding that introduction of halal certification could have an catalyst effect to boost their exports.
Pakistan’s exports of leather, sports goods and surgical instruments have declined during the last few years mainly because of the non implementation of international quality standards and introduction of cutting edge technologies for processed goods adopted else where in the world.
