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Pakistan’s exports to Europe surge to $3.8 billion in first five months of current fiscal year

Shipping containers are seen stacked on a ship at a sea port in Karachi on April 6, 2023. (AFP/ file)
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Updated 20 January 2025
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Pakistan’s exports to Europe surge to $3.8 billion in first five months of current fiscal year

  • Growth in exports driven by textile, leather, garments, sports goods and surgical instruments sectors, says state media 
  • European Union (EU) is Pakistan’s second most important trading partner, accounting for over 14 percent of Pakistan’s total trade
Updated 20 January 2025
Shahjahan Khurram

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. 

Topics: Pakistan Europe trade

Pakistan PM warns authorities against negligence in Hajj 2025 preparations

Updated 1 min 6 sec ago
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Pakistan PM warns authorities against negligence in Hajj 2025 preparations

  • Shehbaz Sharif orders authorities to pay special attention to pilgrims’ accommodation and travel
  • This year 179,210 Pakistani pilgrims are expected to perform annual Islamic pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia
Updated 1 min 6 sec ago
Hasaan Ali Khan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned authorities on Monday against neglecting their duties related to this year’s Hajj pilgrimage, instructing them to provide the best possible facilities to pilgrims.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Hajj agreement 2025 this month, according to which 179,210 pilgrims from the South Asian country would perform the annual pilgrimage in 2025. The quota for pilgrims is divided equally between government and private schemes. 

Sharif chaired a review meeting on Hajj preparations in Islamabad on Monday during which he was briefed on measures taken by the government related to the pilgrimage so far. Religious Affairs Minister Chaudhry Salik Hussain and other senior officials also participated in the meeting. 

“No negligence will be tolerated in preparations for Hajj 2025,” Sharif was quoted as saying by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). “All necessary assistance and facilities will be ensured for Hajj pilgrims in Hajj 2025.”

The Pakistani premier directed authorities to ensure transparency and merit in selecting Hajj assistants or moavineen, the statement said. He demanded a detailed briefing on Hajj assistants’ responsibilities and the process through which they are appointed. 

“Pilgrims should be provided with the best training facilities for Hajj 2025,” Sharif said, adding that special attention should be given to their accommodation, travel and other facilities. 

Pakistan’s Hajj Policy 2025 allows pilgrims to make payments in installments for the first time. Under this scheme, the first installment of Rs 200,000 ($717) is to be submitted with the application, the second installment of Rs 400,000 ($1,435) within 10 days of the balloting and the remaining amount is due by Feb.10 this year.

On Jan. 17, the Pakistani Religious Affairs Ministry began mandatory training sessions for Pakistani nationals selected to perform this year’s Hajj pilgrimage under the government scheme. It also launched the Pak Hajj 2025 mobile application, available for both Android and iPhone users, to assist pilgrims. 

Additionally, the government reduced airfare for pilgrims, lowering ticket prices to Rs 220,000 ($785.41) from last year’s Rs 234,000 ($835.39). Pakistan International Airlines, Saudi Airlines and private carriers will be responsible for transporting pilgrims this year.

Topics: Pakistan Hajj 2025

Pakistan’s finance minister leaves for Davos to attend World Economic Forum 2025 summit

Updated 45 min 8 sec ago
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Pakistan’s finance minister leaves for Davos to attend World Economic Forum 2025 summit

  • Business, trade and political leaders will attend this year’s WEF meeting from Jan. 20-24 in Davos 
  • Muhammad Aurangzeb to meet ministerial delegations from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt during summit
Updated 45 min 8 sec ago
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has left for Davos to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual summit where he will meet political, trade and business leaders from various countries and officials of international organizations, state-run media reported on Monday. 

The WEF is an international organization for public-private cooperation that arranges an annual summit where leaders meet to address key global and regional challenges. Discussions at the summit involve responding to geopolitical shocks and stimulating growth to improve living standards. This year’s annual meeting has been kept on the theme: ‘Collaboration for the Intelligent Age’ and will be held from Jan. 20-24 in the Swiss city of Davos. 

Pakistan’s participation in the summit will take place as it navigates a tricky path to economic recovery following a prolonged macroeconomic crisis. The South Asian country hopes to escape this crisis through sustained growth brought about by enhancing its export potential, attracting investments from friendly nations and bringing about fiscal reforms. 

“Federal Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb has left for Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum 2025 Annual Meeting,” Pakistan’s finance ministry said in a statement. 

“Aurangzeb will meet political, trade and business leaders from different countries and international organizations while attending the World Economic Forum, which will be held from Jan. 20-24,” it added. 

The ministry said Aurangzeb will address various sessions and take part in discussions during the summit to clarify Pakistan’s economic scenario. He will also participate as a panelist in a high-level discussion on the increasing burden of global debt on developing economies, the statement said. 

The ministry said Aurangzeb will take part in panel discussions on the rising global debt burden on developing economies, and on the revolutionary impact of new technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence and automation, in promoting trade and investment.

The statement said Aurangzeb will hold meetings with ministerial delegations from Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia during his visit to the forum. 

“During his participation in the forum, the finance minister will also meet officials of global financial and business institutions, global organizations involved in sustainable development, and those of investment and commercial banks, especially investment banks from the Middle East,” the ministry said. 

Aurangzeb will also give interviews to selected international media representatives during the summit, in which several heads of state and representatives of governments, the private sector and civil society leaders are taking part, the ministry said. 

Topics: WEF 2025 Pakistan at WEF World Economic Forum 2025

Imran Khan announces ‘Black Day,’ protests on Feb. 8 anniversary of Pakistan general elections

Updated 20 January 2025
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Imran Khan announces ‘Black Day,’ protests on Feb. 8 anniversary of Pakistan general elections

  • Khan calls on KP Chief Minister Gandapur to lead supporters in Peshawar for protest gathering on Feb. 8
  • Khan’s Pakistan Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party says last year’s vote was rigged, which election commission denies 
Updated 20 January 2025
Shahjahan Khurram

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan on Sunday called on his supporters nationwide to mark Feb. 8 as a “Black Day” and hold protests on the one-year anniversary of last year’s general election that the jailed leader’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party says were rigged.

The national polls on Feb. 8, 2024, were marred by a countrywide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) deny the charges. The US House of Representatives, as well as European countries, have called on Islamabad to open a probe into the allegations — a move that Pakistan has thus far rejected.

Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“We will observe February 8th as a Black Day nationwide,” Khan wrote on social media platform X. “On this day, the mandate of the Pakistani people was blatantly stolen.”

The former prime minister directed Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the PTI is in power, to lead caravans from across the province for a public gathering in Peshawar, the provincial capital, on Feb. 8.

“I also instruct the legal community, including the Insaf Lawyers Forum and other (PTI) wings, to observe this day with vigorous protests,” he added. “Legislators, party officials and people from all walks of life must commemorate this attack on democracy as a Black Day.”

Khan was ousted from power in 2022 after what is widely believed to be a falling out with the country’s powerful top generals. The army denies it interferes in politics.

He has been in prison since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal challenges that ruled him out of the Feb. 8 general elections and which he says are politically motivated to keep him and his party away from power. Khan has either been acquitted or his sentences have been suspended in most cases. However, in the latest blow, Khan was handed a 14-year jail sentence in a land corruption case last week. 

Another pending case against Khan relates to charges of inciting supporters to attack military facilities to protest against his arrest on May 9, 2023.

His party is accused of leading several other violent protest rallies since the May 9 riots. 

All cases against Khan have been tried inside prison, away from the public or media eye, on security grounds.

The sentence in the land bribery case is a setback to nascent talks between the PTI and the government aimed at cooling political instability in the South Asian nation.

Topics: Imran Khan black day

South Sudan lawmakers to arrive in Islamabad today to enhance parliamentary ties, bilateral cooperation

Updated 20 January 2025
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South Sudan lawmakers to arrive in Islamabad today to enhance parliamentary ties, bilateral cooperation

  • South Sudanese lawmakers to meet prominent political figures, government leaders during three-day visit
  • Delegation arrives at a time of conflict and turmoil in Sudan, where a 20-month war has killed over 24,000
Updated 20 January 2025
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: A delegation of South Sudan’s legislative assembly is arriving in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad today, Monday, on a three-day visit to boost bilateral relations and parliamentary ties with Pakistan, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported. 

The delegation will be headed by Nathaniel Oyet Pierino, the first deputy speaker of the South Sudan parliament. Pierino is visiting Pakistan on the invitation of Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to enhance parliamentary diplomacy, Radio Pakistan said. 

“These meetings will focus on fostering closer parliamentary cooperation, addressing mutual interests, and expanding the scope of bilateral relations across various sectors,” the state media reported. 

The South Sudanese delegation will engage in a series of important meetings with Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Deputy Speaker Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah and Deputy Chairman of the Senate Syedaal Khan.

The Sudanese delegation will meet prominent political figures and government leaders to further solidify ties between the two nations, Radio Pakistan added. 

The delegation arrives at a time when the African region is engulfed in turmoil as a civil war between a paramilitary group in Sudan and the country’s army rages on. The 20-month war has killed over 24,000 and driven over 14 million people from their homes, according to the UN. 

An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have crossed into neighboring countries, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan, to escape the horrors of the conflict. 

Pakistan has repeatedly called on the international community to support efforts for a ceasefire in the African country and urged both warring parties to desist from further bloodshed in the country. 
 

Topics: South Sudan

Pakistan says progress on resettling Afghans in Western countries remains ‘painfully slow’

Updated 20 January 2025
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Pakistan says progress on resettling Afghans in Western countries remains ‘painfully slow’

  • Thousands of Afghans who helped American troops and diplomats during Afghan war await resettlement in US
  • Pakistan says would have been “more appropriate” if world did not abandon the Afghan people after the war 
Updated 20 January 2025
SAIMA SHABBIR

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. 

Topics: Afghan Nationals

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