Pakistan’s exports of knitwear and other knitted garments and hosiery grew by nearly 13 per cent in the first four months of the current financial year as the industry continued to show its resilience to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The latest figures from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics show that exports totaled 24,425 thousand dozens of knitwear items worth $1.18 billion between July and October 2020, compared to $1.05 billion in the same period last year
Exports of ready made garments from Pakistan were up 4.6 per cent compared to last year accounting for around 11,378 thousand dozens of ready made garments with a value of $947.419.
The figures also show that in total, textile exports were up 3.78 per cent to $4.79 billion compared to 2019, despite a drop in exports of raw cotton and cotton yarn.
The boosted knitwear figures come as the sector reported recently that it was back up and running to almost full capacity following the almost total shutdown earlier this year, brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
The much-needed growth in textile production has also prompted a significant leap in cotton and synthetic yarn imports. “The textile industry has revived to pre-Covid-19 level, as precautionary measures to safeguard people from the virus and industry-specific economic measures by the government have helped at length to resume production to full capacity,” All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Apmta) former vice-chairman Asif Inam told The Express Tribune, adding some of the textile units which closed down permanently during the crisis had not reopened.
Inam also suggested that Pakistan was faring better than many of its regional competitors with buyers diverting a number of their orders to Pakistan from China, India and Bangladesh. This, he said was a knock on effect of the US-China trade war as well as lower production in India which was experiencing a worsening of the Covid-19 crisis.
“The number of export orders may increase in the time to come with recovery from the pandemic in export countries and regions, including the US and Europe,” Inam said. “The industry has also recovered at a fast pace with the government’s support in the shape of rationalizing energy prices to a regional competitive level, the continued supply of raw material and subsidized financing for the expansion of production and setting up new units.
“All these were the long pending demands of the industry to become competitive at the regional and international level. We had put such demands in front of several previous governments time and again, but this government has kept its words and delivered to the industry.”