Textile exports plunge 15%, Marks tenth consecutive month of decline

[ghazi52]

.,.,.,.

Textile exports plunge 15%​

Marks tenth consecutive month of decline

Shahram Haq
August 03, 2023

LAHORE: Pakistan’s textile sector, once a powerhouse of export revenues, continues its dismal performance, facing a 15% month-on-month decline in the first month of the new fiscal year 2023-24. The All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) released provisional data on Wednesday, revealing that textile exports for July 2023 stood at $1.31 billion, compared to $1.54 billion for the same month the previous year.

This marks the tenth consecutive month of decline for the country’s largest export revenue-generating sector. In the first seven months of this calendar year, textile exports recorded a meagre $9.09 billion, a significant drop from $11.48 billion in the same period of the previous calendar year, resulting in a disheartening 21% negative growth.

The slump extends beyond textiles, as the overall country’s exports also dipped by 12.68% on a month-on-month basis. July 2023 exports reached $2.057 billion, down from $2.356 billion in June 2023. Moreover, on a year-on-year basis, July 2023 exports declined from $2.250 billion in July 2022 to $2.057 billion, reflecting an alarming decrease of 8.57%.

Experts predict that the textile sector’s woes are far from over. After experiencing a massive 9.84% negative growth in the last fiscal year, it is feared that the trend will persist for at least the next five months.

“It would be a miracle if textile exports turned positive next year,” remarked Ijaz Khokhar, the Chief of Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association. Stakeholders emphasise the urgent need for policymakers and concerned ministries to address the critical situation in this crucial sector. They fear that without intervention, the country may suffer a staggering $2 billion loss in textile exports this fiscal year.

The stakeholders expressed concern over the lack of interest shown by the Ministry of Commerce and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan in formulating any policy or strategy to address this negative growth. “We have a textile policy in Pakistan, but sadly no institution is interested in materialising it. This is the prime reason why our textile exports are turning negative, and they are likely to remain so in the coming months,” said a concerned textile exporter.

Despite the establishment of a Special Investment Facilitation Council, the textile sector has been surprisingly excluded. While the initiative identifies key sectors to revitalise the economy, its impact might be delayed for years, leaving the textile industry grappling with continued losses.

Textile exports plunge 15% | The Express Tribune

Marks tenth consecutive month of decline

tribune.com.pk

 

[Hexlor]

I called it in the "KSE 100 crosses 49,000" post.

The slump extends beyond textiles, as the overall country’s exports also dipped by 12.68% on a month-on-month basis. July 2023 exports reached $2.057 billion, down from $2.356 billion in June 2023. Moreover, on a year-on-year basis, July 2023 exports declined from $2.250 billion in July 2022 to $2.057 billion, reflecting an alarming decrease of 8.57%.

This is the most concerning bit. Not only has PDM massacred our textile exports, but they have also massacred our overall exports, someone please tell the PDM walas to have some restrain, reduce the exports by 2-3% if you want to sabotage Pakistan but reducing it by 10% every month is just cruel. Questions like "Why is PDM so shameless?" or "Did Nawaz eat the cotton?" need to be asked.

“It would be a miracle if textile exports turned positive next year,” remarked Ijaz Khokhar

So PDM has basically screwed Pakistan for the next year.

Fun fact, exports were $31.5B in the final 12 months of PTI's government. Pakistan's exports in the last 12 months have been $27.8B. That's a drop of almost 12%.

PDM supporters must be really enjoying this. Destroying Pakistan is their specialty.

 

[maithil]

That's 4 Billion dollars less in exports. And 4 Billion bigger gap in Dollar needs.

 

[ziaulislam]

.,.,.,.

Textile exports plunge 15%​

Marks tenth consecutive month of decline

Shahram Haq
August 03, 2023

LAHORE: Pakistan’s textile sector, once a powerhouse of export revenues, continues its dismal performance, facing a 15% month-on-month decline in the first month of the new fiscal year 2023-24. The All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) released provisional data on Wednesday, revealing that textile exports for July 2023 stood at $1.31 billion, compared to $1.54 billion for the same month the previous year.

This marks the tenth consecutive month of decline for the country’s largest export revenue-generating sector. In the first seven months of this calendar year, textile exports recorded a meagre $9.09 billion, a significant drop from $11.48 billion in the same period of the previous calendar year, resulting in a disheartening 21% negative growth.

The slump extends beyond textiles, as the overall country’s exports also dipped by 12.68% on a month-on-month basis. July 2023 exports reached $2.057 billion, down from $2.356 billion in June 2023. Moreover, on a year-on-year basis, July 2023 exports declined from $2.250 billion in July 2022 to $2.057 billion, reflecting an alarming decrease of 8.57%.

Experts predict that the textile sector’s woes are far from over. After experiencing a massive 9.84% negative growth in the last fiscal year, it is feared that the trend will persist for at least the next five months.

“It would be a miracle if textile exports turned positive next year,” remarked Ijaz Khokhar, the Chief of Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association. Stakeholders emphasise the urgent need for policymakers and concerned ministries to address the critical situation in this crucial sector. They fear that without intervention, the country may suffer a staggering $2 billion loss in textile exports this fiscal year.

The stakeholders expressed concern over the lack of interest shown by the Ministry of Commerce and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan in formulating any policy or strategy to address this negative growth. “We have a textile policy in Pakistan, but sadly no institution is interested in materialising it. This is the prime reason why our textile exports are turning negative, and they are likely to remain so in the coming months,” said a concerned textile exporter.

Despite the establishment of a Special Investment Facilitation Council, the textile sector has been surprisingly excluded. While the initiative identifies key sectors to revitalise the economy, its impact might be delayed for years, leaving the textile industry grappling with continued losses.

Textile exports plunge 15% | The Express Tribune

Marks tenth consecutive month of decline

tribune.com.pk

This is definitively not due to global demand as it's up

So it's probably because Pakistanis don't want send precious cotton/exports out of the country

 

[ghazi52]

,..,.,.

Textile exports: where does Pakistan stand?​

August 4, 2023

EDITORIAL:

Insofar as the enormity of Pakistan’s economic (balance of payments and manufacturing) challenges is concerned, one of the worrying factors is that exports in general and textile exports in particular are falling. One cannot blame the demand factor from the West as there is an uptick in textile exports for countries like India and Bangladesh.

There are some Pakistan-specific factors, which are hurting the competitiveness of exporters such as a massive rise in energy prices, growing working capital cost and supply-side bottlenecks. Buyers are also reluctant to offer business to Pakistan due to the country’s woefully fluid macroeconomic position.

It is important to note that in FY22, as per the central banks’ payment data based on export receipts, Bangladesh’s textile exports (net of textile imports) were not much higher than those of Pakistan. Bangladesh’s net textile exports were of $15.7 billion while for Pakistan the number was $12.7 billion.

Textile imports to exports ratio was 39 percent in Bangladesh versus 31 percent in Pakistan in FY22. Thus, Pakistan has a higher conversion of imports to exports in value terms.

However, in gross valuation, Bangladesh’s textile exports were much higher at $32.7 billion versus $18.3 billion of Pakistan. And if we take Bangladesh’s Export Promotion Bureau’s statistics, textile exports were $46.7 billion as compared to $19.3 billion recorded by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

This difference has widened in FY23 - especially in the last six months. Bangladesh recorded a growth of 11 percent in textile exports (Bangladesh’s Export Promotion Bureau data) to $42.6 billion in 11MFY23 while in FY23 Pakistan’s textile exports are down by 15 percent to $16.5 billion – the deceleration is higher lately.

There are some notes one should take. One is that historically, the net exports from Pakistan were in line with those of Bangladesh in value terms.

Bangladesh mainly imports its raw material and processes it to exports while Pakistan traditionally used domestic cotton and had higher conversion of dollar imports to exports. The other factor is about composition of exports. Bangladesh’s textile exports comprise readymade garments — knitwear and woven garments.

However, Pakistan’s reliance is on varying products — low value-added products such as cotton yarn, cotton cloth and towels; and higher value-added products like readymade garments and knitwear.

The competitiveness is hit owing to higher reliance on low value-added products because of availability of low cost energy and cheap cotton to our exporters. Now energy is getting expensive and local cotton is becoming dearer and unsuitable for higher counts, and that is making these low value-added items less attractive.

And one must blame the lack of imagination of our textile exporters as well who never really worked towards fully exploiting the potential in garments made from cotton and also manmade fibers.

Many of our exporters even invested the TERF (temporary economic refinance facility) money in spinning rather than in higher value-added machinery or products. Interestingly, those who have ventured into readymade garments and knitwear are accruing dividends.

Even in FY23, there is an uptick in quantity (volume) exports of knitwear and readymade garments from Pakistan while all other categories (cotton yarn, cotton cloth, towels and bedwear) registered a decline.

Thus, in those areas where Bangladesh is present and growing, the performance of Pakistan’s exports is not bad at all. However, some of the exporters in the high value-added segment could not utilize the capacities fully.

One big exporter in garments lately had almost 50 percent idle capacity, and now due to aggressive marketing they are confident that from October onwards, their factory may run close to 100 percent.

Pakistan is largely missing the shift of textile from China where India and Bangladesh are aggressively covering the turf. This was supposed to be a part of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) Phase-II by shifting labour-intensive industries such as textiles from China to Pakistan in special economic zones (SEZs).

However, SEZs are yet to kick-start. Buyers are not bullish in the long term on Pakistan as they are more comfortable in other jurisdictions.

At the same time, Pakistan’s exporters did also lock the capital in low value-added sectors. Having said that, one good factor is that Pakistan has positioned itself in higher value-added items within readymade garments and knitwear while Bangladesh is more focused on basic items. Overall volumes are much higher in Bangladesh while the higher value is extracted by Pakistan.

This trend needs to grow, and more capacities are required in these areas along with a focus on manmade fiber. We hope that sooner rather than later the policymakers and exporters of the textile chain would engage in deliberations to address the irritants and focus on maximizing textile exports and enter the high-end global market for textiles and generate a high multiple of exports on every dollar of textile import.

 

[CallSignMaverick]

This is definitively not due to global demand as it's up

So it's probably because Pakistanis don't want send precious cotton/exports out of the country

Really? Exports are down everywhere.

 

[tman786]

I welcome comments by our resident house patwaris? Aka @muhammadhafeezmalik and @FOOLS_NIGHTMARE

Don't be shy boys

 

[SBD-3]

This is primarily the consequence of import bans and curbs. About 70% of the inputs for textiles are directly or indirectly dependent upon imports. The sector depends upon imports which can't be directly linked to the exports and the import controls on these products are creating the shortages and price spikes. Secondly, the US and European economies are cooling down so the demand has been low, the average industrial units are operating at around 50% of their capacity due to this lack of demand. However, now the exporters have started to report increased orders particularly from US.

 

[Hexlor]

This is definitively not due to global demand as it's up

So it's probably because Pakistanis don't want send precious cotton/exports out of the country

"In the letter, the textile lobby outlined the major problems besetting the industry. Textile mills are running at less than 50% of their production capacity and so far around seven million people associated with the sector have been rendered jobless."

“the textile industry will have to import at least one million bales of cotton to meet its requirement. However, banks were not opening LCs for import of the required quantity of cotton.”

It cautioned that textile mills were running out of cotton stocks and that the industry would shut down completely owing to the unavailability of raw materials.

Textile industry on verge of default | The Express Tribune

Asks in letter to SBP governor to allow LC opening as mills are running below 50% capacity

tribune.com.pk

Meanwhile 2 months before PDM took over -

LAHORE: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Punjab Chairman Abdul Rahim Nasir has said that sustained supply of gas/RLNG [Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas) has helped maintain the momentum of enhanced exports, as currently the textile industry is working at its full capacity.


Rahim Nasir said, textile sector is currently in the mode of rapid expansion to cater to increased orders and demands.

Textile industry working at full capacity: APTMA

He said it was essential to sustain the momentum, which was being facilitated by the upcoming textile policy.

www.brecorder.com

So basically PDM took an industry that was running at full capacity and cut its capacity by more than half in a little over a year, leading to 7 million people losing their jobs and Pakistan having $5B+ less inflows.

Anyone with a single brain cell could've figured that this would happen by

looking at PMLN and PPP's history. Thankfully for PDM, there's no shortage of brainless zombies in Pakistan.

Prime example - @muhammadhafeezmalik, @FOOLS_NIGHTMARE

 

[ziaulislam]

"In the letter, the textile lobby outlined the major problems besetting the industry. Textile mills are running at less than 50% of their production capacity and so far around seven million people associated with the sector have been rendered jobless."

“the textile industry will have to import at least one million bales of cotton to meet its requirement. However, banks were not opening LCs for import of the required quantity of cotton.”

It cautioned that textile mills were running out of cotton stocks and that the industry would shut down completely owing to the unavailability of raw materials.

Textile industry on verge of default | The Express Tribune

Asks in letter to SBP governor to allow LC opening as mills are running below 50% capacity

tribune.com.pk

Meanwhile 2 months before PDM took over -

LAHORE: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Punjab Chairman Abdul Rahim Nasir has said that sustained supply of gas/RLNG [Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas) has helped maintain the momentum of enhanced exports, as currently the textile industry is working at its full capacity.


Rahim Nasir said, textile sector is currently in the mode of rapid expansion to cater to increased orders and demands.

Textile industry working at full capacity: APTMA

He said it was essential to sustain the momentum, which was being facilitated by the upcoming textile policy.

www.brecorder.com

So basically PDM took an industry that was running at full capacity and cut its capacity by more than half in a little over a year, leading to 7 million people losing their jobs and Pakistan having $5B+ less inflows.

Anyone with a single brain cell could've figured that this would happen by

looking at PMLN and PPP's history. Thankfully for PDM, there's no shortage of brainless zombies in Pakistan.

Prime example - @muhammadhafeezmalik, @FOOLS_NIGHTMARE

Ironically even during 2018-2020 PTI were able to exempt textile industry from import restrictions

Anyway repeat after me ..

"Khata hey tu lagata be hey"
"Sheir aik wari fair !"

 

[Jango]

Didn't you know, economy is booming, Fool's posted a thread a couple of days ago I think.

And then our Stock Exchange (or as I like to call it, AKD and Tabba enterprise), is also shattering records.