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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s merchandise exports rose 9.54 per cent in the first month of FY27, even as the trade deficit widened on the back of rising imports, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday.
In absolute terms, export proceeds stood at $2.94 billion in July, up from $2.68bn in the same month last year. Officials noted that the impact of budgetary measures on the export sector may become more evident in the months ahead. On a month-on-month basis, export proceeds surged 31.09pc.
In FY26, Pakistan’s merchandise exports not only missed the annual target by $4.87bn, but also contracted, reflecting the PML-N-led coalition government’s failure to achieve visible improvement over the last four years. The export proceeds also contracted by 5.97pc compared with last year’s $32.04bn.
The planning ministry had earlier projected that export proceeds would climb to $60bn by 2030 — a target that has largely remained confined to official documents. More recently, however, the same ministry has revised the projection upward, setting a fresh target of $100bn to be achieved by 2035.
