Pakistan needs exports, not loans

Textile exports for April clocked in at $1.24 billion, a staggering $500 million less than the previous year’s exports for April and a colossal $1bn per month short of the capability due to enhanced capacity. It is disheartening to see that over the same period, competing countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam posted impressive growth ranging from 10-30 per cent in textile exports over the last year while we struggled to keep up with our previous years’ exports. Exogenous factors, ie demand and external market forces, cannot be blamed for our downfall as the decline is entirely the consequence of our shortsighted decisions and failure to follow through on proven policies such as providing a level playing field on energy tariffs. The impressive surge in Pakistan’s textile exports, a remarkable 56pc, to $19.5bn in 2022 from $12.5 billion in 2020 is largely attributed to the strong policy support through regionally competitive energy tariffs (RCET).