The country's exports in February 2020 as against January 2020 have registered an increase of 8.19 percent, up from $1.98 billion to $2.14 billion, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said. According to the PBS's data on monthly advance releases on foreign trade statistics for February 2020 the country's exports on year-on-year (YoY) basis witnessed an increase of 13.76 percent, that is $1.881 billion in February 2019 to $2.14 billion in February 2020.

The data shows that improvement in country's exports is backed by massive exports of vegetables, which witnessed two-fold increase.

Fruits with 55.6 percent increase and an increase of 29.8 percent in textile related five products including readymade garments, which showed an increase of 38.53 percent, knitwear 33.95 percent, bed wear 30.66 percent, cotton cloth 19.79 percent and towels 26.06 percent.

On quarterly basis, exports during July-February 2019-2020 totaled $15.643 billion as against $15.1 billion during the corresponding period of the last year showing an increase of 3.62 percent.

Following were the major commodities exported during February 2020: readymade garments Rs 43.28 billion, knitwear Rs 39.85 billion, bed wear Rs 31.754 billion, cotton cloth Rs 29.3 billion, rice Rs 19.4 billion, cotton yarn Rs 15.06 billion, towels Rs 12.27 billion, vegetables Rs 9.98 billion, fruits Rs 9.945 billion, and made-up articles (excluding towels and bed wear) Rs 9.28 billion.

The PBS said that imports of the country during February 2020 as against January 2020 witnessed an increase of 1.21 percent at $4.185 billion as compared to $4.135 billion while on annual basis the imports witnessed an increase of 1 percent from $4.144 billion in February 2019 to $4.185 billion in February 2020.

The imports during July-February 2019-2020 registered a reduction of 13.81 percent from $36.563 billion in July-February 2018-2019 to $31.515 billion July-February 2019-2020.

Following remained the major commodities imported during February 2020: petroleum products Rs 97.180 billion, petroleum crude Rs 35.7 billion, liquefied natural gas Rs 32.27 billion, plastic materials Rs 31.28 billion, raw cotton Rs 30 billion, palm oil Rs 27.99 billion, power generating machinery Rs 22.8 billion, iron and steel Rs 22.56 billion, electrical machinery and apparatus Rs 22.2 billion, and iron and steel scrap Rs 20.33 billion.