The Manufactured Exports of Pakistan: Factor Intensity and Related Economic Characteristics

Abstract

Pakistan has been able to achieve an impressive rate of growth of exports, especially manufactured exports, during the past decade or so. The annual rate of growth of the dollar value of manufactured exports during the period from 1956–7 to 1966–7 has been about 22 per cent. Undoubtedly a major proportion of these exports was constituted by jute and cotton textiles; the dollar value of exports of jute manufactures increased at a compound rate of about 18 per cent and those of cotton yarn and cotton cloth increased at the rates of 10 per cent and 37 per cent respectively. The exports of cotton textiles, i.e. both yarn and cloth, increased at rates higher than the rates of growth of world trade in these manufactured exports, which were respectively 7·5 per cent and 3·5 per cent. At the same time there was an impressive growth of non-textile exports such as leather and leather goods, wooden and a large variety of miscellaneous manufactured exports. The dollar value of the minor manufactured exports during the same period increased at an annual compound rate of about 39 per cent. This is partly a statistical phenomenon, since the absolute volume of miscellaneous exports during the late 1950s was very small.