The government is planning to target exports of $28 billion next fiscal year as it wants to extend the duty-free import regime to more raw materials in the upcoming budget to support the manufacturers.
Speaking with Dawn, Commerce Adviser Abdul Razak Dawood claimed that the country was expecting its export revenues to rise to over $24bn this fiscal year.
The country’s exports rose by over 13.5 per cent to $20.9bn in the first 10 months of 2020-21 from $18.4bn a year ago, announced by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data for the period between July and April.
The textile and clothing exports observed a growth of over 18pc in 10MFY21 and Mr. Dawood expects the textile and clothing shipments to jump to $16bn by the end of June. “You see textile and clothing exports will fetch an additional $3bn — equal to half of the money the country had borrowed from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July 2019 under a 39-month bailout package. So I am very hopeful that the growth trend in exports will continue going forward. I am also discussing with the finance minister the possibility of cutting customs duties on more raw materials. Today 40pc raw materials are coming into Pakistan at zero duty. We want to make import of all raw materials duty-free in next few years,” he contended.
