ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s exports to Europe have surged to $3.8 billion in the first five months of the current fiscal year, state-run media reported on Monday, marking an increase of 8.62 percent compared to the same period last year. 

The European Union (EU) is Pakistan’s second most important trading partner, accounting for over 14 percent of Pakistan’s total trade and absorbing 28 percent of Pakistan’s total exports. Pakistani exports to the EU are dominated mostly by textiles and clothing.

Pakistan avails the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP)+ status, a special trade arrangement offered by the EU to developing economies in return for their commitment to implement 27 international conventions on human rights, environmental protection and governance.

The current GSP framework came to an end in December 2023 but Members of EU Parliament (MEPs) voted in October to extend the current rules on the scheme for another four years for developing countries, including Pakistan. 

“Pakistan’s exports to Europe surged to 3.8 billion dollars, reflecting an 8.62 percent increase in the first five months of current fiscal year,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.

It said the growth in exports was driven by the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a Pakistani hybrid civil-military body, in the sectors of textiles, leather, garments, sports goods and surgical instruments.

Pakistan’s government formed the SIFC in June 2023 to promote business opportunities in various sectors such as agriculture, mining, information technology and defense, and attract foreign investment. 

The SIFC has targeted mainly Gulf countries in its attempt to revitalize Pakistan’s economy and ensure it heads toward sustainable growth in the years to come. The council was set up in 2023 as Pakistan faced tough economic challenges amid dwindling forex reserves and a rapidly depreciating national currency.

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has repeatedly stressed the importance of shifting Pakistan’s economy from an import-dependent one toward an export-led one, saying that without it sustainable economic growth is difficult to achieve. 

In recent months, Pakistan has vigorously pursued economic and investment deals with Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and bilateral trade cooperation with Central Asian states, Russia and others. 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office has said that progress on the cases of thousands of Afghans seeking resettlement in Western countries remains “painfully slow,” insisting that it was only repatriating Afghan nationals who were residing illegally in Pakistan. 

Thousands of Afghan locals put themselves in danger to serve alongside US troops, diplomats, and contractors during the war in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks. These individuals provided linguistic, cultural and geographic knowledge to the United States at great personal risk to themselves and their families. 

Since 2006, the American Congress has established several Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) programs that allow eligible applicants to resettle to safety in the US. After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, thousands of Afghans who had filed such refugee resettlement applications entered neighboring Pakistan, but remain trapped in legal limbo, while facing persistent threats for their collaboration with the US. 

In 2023, Islamabad began a drive to expel what it said were all undocumented foreigners, a campaign that has disproportionately hit Afghans, with reportedly 800,000 repatriated so far. Afghan rights activists and applicants of SIVs have said the deportation drive has also forcibly repatriated scores of Afghans awaiting resettlement in the United States, which Islamabad denies. 

Pakistan has consistently called on Western countries to expedite the approval and visa issuance of Afghan nationals that are currently in Pakistan but awaiting to be resettled in the West. 

“Progress on the cases of thousands of Afghan nationals who were promised resettlement in Western countries remains painfully slow,” Pakistan’s foreign office wrote on social media platform X on Sunday. 

It was responding to Jan England, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who had highlighted the plight of Afghan refugees being repatriated from Pakistan and Iran. 

The foreign office pointed out that Pakistan had hosted over four million Afghan refugees that had escaped their war-torn country for the past 40 years, adding that those being sent back were those that were “residing illegally without any documentation or proof of residence.”

“It would have been more appropriate had the world not abandoned the Afghan people after the war and if conducive socioeconomic conditions had been created inside the country for the Afghan people to prosper,” the foreign office said. It said that the United Nations’ humanitarian aid to Afghanistan remains “critically underfunded” with only 37.5 percent of the required funds secured last year.

“Pakistan has been and will continue to support all efforts aimed at addressing the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan as well as for lasting peace and stability in the country,” the foreign office concluded. 

PAKISTAN’S DEPORTATION DRIVE

Pakistan launched the deportation drive in October 2023 after a spike in suicide bombings which the Pakistan government, without providing evidence, said were carried out by Afghan nationals. Islamabad has also blamed them for smuggling, militant violence and other crimes. 

A cash-strapped Pakistan navigating record inflation, alongside a tough International Monetary Fund bailout program in 2023, had also said undocumented migrants had drained its resources for decades.

Until the government initiated the expulsion drive, Pakistan was home to over four million Afghan migrants and refugees out of which around 1.7 million were undocumented, as per government figures.

Afghans make up the largest portion of migrants, many of whom came after the Taliban took over Kabul in 2021, but a large number have been present since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Islamabad insists the deportation drive is not aimed specifically at Afghans but at all those living illegally in Pakistan.