Pakistan's textile exports might fall during the current fiscal year. The reason is global buyers, fearing that the country’s power and gas shortages might delay their supplies, have placed low orders for Christmas and New Year.

And these shortages actually have delayed shipments from Pakistan to the west. WEestern buyers prefer Bangladesh and other Asian countries. They place orders with Pakistan exporters for textile items on a monthly basis, instead of six months or yearly, as they used to do in the past. Christmas and New Year are key sales seasons for them and they cannot afford to miss such mega festivals merely because of manufacturers’ faults.

Timely shipments to world markets are a problem for exporters in Pakistan as they are unable to dispatch orders ahead of the export deadline. If exporters produce late shipments, they have to bear the airfreight charges to meet the deadline, which is expensive.

The political turmoil in the country is another reason for the fall in total textile exports in the current fiscal year. Western buyers are uncertain whether they would be receiving shipments on time. They are reluctant to place orders with Pakistani textile exporters for such big occasions in Europe and the US fearing low industrial output in the wake of the country’s power and gas crises.