LAHORE, May 25 (INP): The cement exports continued to grow for the last 10th consecutive month of the current fiscal year, up by 30.89 percent, while in April 2019 its export reported a jump of about 42 percent monthly.

According to the latest data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the export of cement from the country has increased by almost 31 percent during the first 10 months of ongoing fiscal year from July 2018 to April 2019 to $243.12 million against the exports of $185.74 million of Jul-Apr (2017-18).

The cement industry is pinning hopes on announcement of the government plan to build 5 million low cost houses in next 5 years, terming it a good omen for the enhancement of domestic sale of the cement which is constantly under pressure.

The industry stakeholders asked the government to start the project as soon as possible as this is the only chance to gear up production for the industry in current scenario at domestic level. Moreover, they added that the industry may face shortage of transport both for domestic and export dispatches due to the law on axle load restriction. They appealed the government to relax the axle load limitations and give a viable deadline to the transporters to add more fleet.

Analyzing the export statistics, the experts said that in terms of quantity, the exports of cement witnessed an increase of 52.72 percent to 5.72 million tons in this period of review from 3.74 million tons of the same period of last fiscal year.

In the same way, according to the data, on-year-on-year basis, the cement exports witnessed an increase of 14.19 percent during the month of April 2019 when compared to the same month of last year.

The cement exports in April 2019 were recorded at $21.861 million against the exports of $ 19.144 million in April 2018. On month-on-month basis, the export of cement also increased by 42.03 percent during April 2019, when compared to the export of $15.39 million during March 2018.

Experts said that the country’s merchandize trade deficit has plunged by 12.82 percent during the first ten months of the current fiscal year compared to the corresponding period of last year mainly due to soaring exports of cement industry.

The trade deficit contracted by $3.867 billion to $26.30 billion during July-April (2018-19) against the deficit of $30.16 billion recorded during July-April (2017-18).