ISLAMABAD: Due to the efforts of SIFC, an extraordinary increase in domestic exports has been recorded during the financial year 2023-2024.
According to the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan’s merchandise exports increased by 10.54 percent to $30.64 billion in 2023-2024 compared to last year.
Imports to drop by 0.84% to $54.73 billion in FY 2024 as compared to $55.19 billion in the previous fiscal year bodes well for economic growth.
In this regard, the exports of meat and its products in the financial year 2024 reached the highest level of 512 million dollars with an increase of 20% compared to last year.
With the round-the-clock efforts of the SIFC and the Ministry of Commerce, new markets in Jordan, Uzbekistan, Lebanon and Egypt have also been opened for the export of meat.
Apart from this, for the first time in history, agro exports increased by 37% from $5.8 billion to $8 billion.
Among agricultural and food exports, rice exports are $3.8 billion, sesame seeds are $410 million, corn exports are $421 million and onion exports are $224 million. By reaching this level of development, Pakistan’s agricultural sector can achieve the target of 10 billion dollars in the current financial year.
In this journey of strengthening the Pakistani economy, the IT sector was also at the forefront and in a short period of 11 months, 2.925 billion dollars in foreign exchange was earned from the export of IT services.
In IT sector, 26.72% increase in exports of computer services, 13.57% in exports of software consultancy services and 17.12% in exports of hardware consultancy services are noteworthy.
The significant increase in exports indicates the growing importance of Pakistani products in the global market and the revolutionary initiatives of SIFC.