Pakistan to send its trade delegation comprising representatives from 22 companies of textile, and other sectors to Argentina, Chile and Peru from March 5 to 14, 2018, to explore the market and negotiate business deals. A single country trade exhibition is also scheduled by TDAP in Chile in August this year. Pakistan’s imports from South American countries continued to outweigh its exports to the region, with a deficit of over $103 mn registered during July-December last year as South American markets restrict market access of textile products to protect the domestic industry and as such perceive textile products of Pakistan a threat to their domestic industry.
Mercosur, a trading bloc of South American countries, is the fifth largest economy in the world today with a GDP of $2.7 tr. However, Pakistan’s trade volume with the South American region has hovered around $600 mn since FY2014-15, except FY2015-16 when the volume was recorded at $769.725 mn.
While there has been an overall increase in the country’s imports from South America from $305 mn in 2014-15 to $222 mn in the first half of the current year, Pakistan’s exports to the region have gradually declined from $296 mn in 2014-15 to $239 mn in the last fiscal year. Within the Mercusor, Pakistan’s largest trading partners have been Argentina and Brazil with bilateral trade volume at $160.894 mn and $251.18 mn, respectively, for fiscal year 2016-17, as per the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) figures.
