PBS data: shrinking exports

Declining volumes of major export categories continued to be the highlight of trade figures released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
On a year-on-year basis, exports of major products in the value-added textile group continued to show a declining trend. During 9MFY12, the quantities of knitwear, bedwear, towels, and readymade garments showed significant year-on-year decreases of around 20 percent on average.
While this trend continued in March on a month-on-month basis, interestingly, volumetric exports of yarn and cotton cloth have risen in the last few months, and registered a month-on-month increase in March as well. Earlier, industry officials claimed that the increase in cotton production, together with lower prices had helped yarn exports in quantitative terms.
This appears plausible, given the close association between raw cotton and yarn exports as far as quantities exported are concerned.
Whats worrisome, however, is that per unit prices of value-added products, as well as cotton yarn and cotton cloth, which had been increasing previously despite dwindling export volumes, have started decreasing, bringing down net exports of the same.
As had been stressed in these columns before, the decrease in per unit prices of value-added products comes after a lag of the decrease in raw cotton prices.
Rice exports, on the other hand, have been decreasing on a year-on-year basis, owing mainly to a decrease in quantities exported, despite an increase in average per unit price during 9MFY12.
On the imports side, net palm oil imports increased about 25 percent on a year-on-year basis in 9MFY12. However, in March alone, the quantities of palm oil imported fell drastically, falling about 40 percent on a month-on-month basis.
The monthly decrease in the quantity of palm oil imported was also seen in January and February this year, making the January-March FY12 quarter a particularly hard hit one. The slump in imported quantity could be owed to palm oil transporters strike, which created supply disruptions as some factories had to close down too. However, it is expected that palm oil imports will be resumed again from April.
Petroleum products imports, on the other hand, continued to increase in both quantity as well as on a per unit price basis. In fact, the per unit price of imports of petroleum products was the highest this fiscal year in March 2012, and the overall increase in net petroleum imports has been a whopping 60 percent in 9MFY12 relative to the same period last year.
Crude oil imports, meanwhile, continued to show a quantitative decline during 9MFY12 relative to the same period last year.
Overall, trade statistics continue to show concerns of decreasing prices of value-added textile products and a hefty increase in petroleum imports.