Slight recovery for Pakistani leather exports
According to Pakistan's statistics bureau, the country’s leather exports rose 12% in May to $67.3 million compared with $60.1 million in April. However, exports fell 38.9% year-on-year. Unsurprisingly, this decline has been attributed to the global economic slowdown.
Finished leather exports totalled $21.1 million, leathergoods exports were $36.6 million and footwear exports totalled $9.6 million compared with $21.6 million, $26.5 million and $12 million, respectively, in April. This shows a 2% drop in finished leather and a 20% decline for footwear. However, leathergoods exports rose 38% month-on-month.
Total leather exports for the period July 2008 to May 2009 fell 19.8% to $816.1 million from $1 billion in the same period last year. During the 11-month period, the country exported 17.3 million m² of finished tanned leather worth $270 million compared with 22 million m² worth $377 million in the corresponding period a year earlier. This represented a decline of 21.4% in volume and 28.5% in value.
During the same 11-month period, leathergoods exports totalled $499 million (including leather garments worth $355.5 million, leather gloves worth $133.7 million and other leathergoods worth $9.9 million), compared with $641 million in the corresponding period the previous year, a drop of 22%. The country exported 13.4 million pairs of footwear worth $119.3 million (including leather footwear worth $96.2 million, canvas footwear worth $1.2 million and other footwear worth $22 million) compared with 12.1 million pairs valued at $109.3 million in the same period a year ago, a rise of 9.2%.
