Pakistan's leather exports on the rise
Pakistan’s leather exports rose 4.4% in May to $74.6 million compared with $71.5 million in April and 0.4% compared with May 2009 ($74.3 million).
A breakdown of the data, provided by the country’s Federal Bureau of Statistics, showed that finished leather exports totalled $36.7 million in May, while leathergoods exports totalled $30.9 million and footwear exports were $7 million compared with$35.7 million, $30.7 million and $5.1 million, respectively, in April. Finished leather exports rose 2.8%, while leathergoods exports were up 0.9% and shoe exports grew 35.3%.
However, leather exports for the first 11 months of the financial year (July 2009 to May 2010) fell 13.4% to $784.1 million from $905.8 million during the same period last year.
The breakdown showed that during this period, Pakistan exported 20.5 million square-metres of finished leather worth $293.7 million compared with 18 million square-metres at $276.4 million during the period, up 13.7% in quantity and 6.3% in value.
Leathergoods exports totalled $404.7 million, (including leather garment exports worth $306.8 million, leather glove exports worth $85.7 million and other leathergoods worth $12.3 million) compared with $512 million the corresponding period last year. This represents a decline of 21%.
The country exported 10.5 million pairs of footwear worth $85.7 million during the 11-month period (including leather footwear exports worth $65.1 million, canvas footwear exports worth $0.5 million and other footwear exports worth $20.1 million). This compares with 13.1 million pairs worth $1.173 billion during the same period a year ago, a decline of 27%.
