Pakistan's exports registered an average growth rate of 16.45 percent per annum over the last four years thanks to wide ranging structural reforms particularly in trade and tariff, the state-run APP news agency reported on Sunday.

Pakistan doubled its exports in the past seven years, and increased its trade-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio from close to 26 percent in fiscal year of 1999-2000 to estimate 34 percent in fiscal 2005-06, said the report.

The exports of fiscal 2005-06 was targeted at 17 billion U.S. dollars, or 18.1 percent higher than the previous fiscal, and export during the first nine months of the 2005-06 fiscal year are up by 18.6 percent -- rising from 10,183 million to 12,073 million dollars in the same period of last year, it said.

Pakistan's exports are highly concentrated in few items, namely cotton, leather, rice, synthetic textiles and sports goods, and these five categories of exports account for 74.5 percent of total exports during the first nine months of 2005-06 with cotton manufacturers alone contributing 58.4 percent, according to the APP report.

Source: Xinhua