Pakistan’s exports to China under CPFTA in FY 2021-22 registered around US $ 2.49 billion

Islamabad: Pakistan’s exports to China under China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) in Financial Year (FY) 2021-22 is registered to the tune of US $ 2.49 billion, Minister for Commerce Syed Naveed Qamar informed the parliament.

Speaking in the Senate during the Question Hour, the minister shared the breakup of last three years. He mentioned that the total country’s exports stood at US $ 21.4 billion in fiscal year 2019-20, US $ 25.3 billion in 2020-21 and US $ 31.8 billion.

He maintained that the country’s exports had shown 5.7 percent decrease during the period of July-December 2022 as compared to the same period last year.

The minister said that high international commodity prices and global demand contraction in Pakistan’s export destinations – China, UK, and US – suboptimal production by export-oriented industries, export supply chain disruption caused by floods specially cotton and rice, liquidity issues of exporters, high cost of financing and disruption in provision of energy at concessionary rates to export-oriented sectors were few reasons in the decline of exports. He underlined that the government was going in International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and as per the lender conditions, “we have to withdraw subsidies given for export oriented sectors.”

Moreover, he added, “we are not facing food insecurity as we have sufficient stock but global recession and other factors may cause downward trend in country’s exports.”

Responding to another question, Qamar remarked that Pakistani exports has reached historical high level of US $ 31.8 billion in FY 2021-22, having an increase of 26 percent as compared with FY 2020-21 owing to government’s unprecedented support to export oriented sectors to reduce their cost of manufacturing and enhance exports during last three fiscal years.

Qamar highlighted that Pakistan’s exports to China under CPFTA had been satisfactory to the tune of US $ 2.49 billion.

The CPFTA is a free trade agreement (FTA) between China and Pakistan that seeks to increase trade and strengthen the partnership between the two countries.

China and Pakistan aim to increase bilateral trade to US $ 15-20 billion by the completion of the second phase and eliminate tariffs on 75% of product lines.