Shrinking exports.

The Global GDP growth according to the WTO forecast for April 2023, was expected to be 2.4 per cent in 2023. Both trade and growth are below the last 12 years averages of 2.6 and 2.7 per cent, respectively. In this situation, countries need to have strong trade integrations besides abstaining from trade barriers. The trade growth was projected to be 1.7 per cent in 2023, higher from earlier forecast of 1.0 per cent in October 2022.

The slowdown in trade growth was because of weak global demand in 2022. A similar situation can also be observed in the regional countries. For instance, China's trade volume deteriorated significantly in the latter half of 2022, because of lower demand for Chinese goods, and weak domestic demand on account of the zero Covid policy. Besides, high inflation in trading partners is another main factor that is affecting the Chinese exports in 2023.

Economists revealed that exports in Pakistan for many years, have been falling and last year this shrinking phenomenon became very acute. For the fall in exports, there are various elements responsible but the issue is that nothing was done to rectify this condition and now it appears that matters have been damaged irretrievably as it is the main accountability of the authority to increase exports through effective policy measures. It must be kept in view that the deficit process could only be halted and subsequently reversed once a balance is achieved between imports and exports.

The condition facts showed, is that the merchandise exports fell for the 11th month in a row in July, plunging by 8.6 per cent year-on-year to $2.05 billion. Due to internal and external factors stoking up fears about the closure of industrial units, especially textile and clothing the export proceeds are declining. In the current year, the merchandise exports were dipped by 12.71 per cent to $27.54 billion from $31.78 billion the previous year missing the $32 billion target by a wide margin of $4.46 billion.

The Government of Pakistan has projected an export target of $30 billion for the current fiscal year. In July 2022 the exports started posting pessimistic growth, barring August when a slight rise was registered due to the backlog of the preceding month. In balancing Pakistan's external account export contraction is a worrisome factor that will create issues. Statistics showed that the drop in textile and clothing was one of the main factors for the decline in overall exports in the current...