Textile manufactures exports surged by 15.64 per cent to $2,602.92 million during the period July-October 2003, as compared to the corresponding period of previous year , according to provisional foreign trade statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Monday.

These accounted for 65.50 per cent of total exports ($3,974.21 million), up about seven per cent from the same period of previous year. As proportion of manufactured exports also, textile manufactures further raised their share to 71.38pc as against 71.33pc in July-October 2002.

As regards manufactured exports, these amounted to $3,646.35 million, registering a growth rate of 15.57pc during the period under review. A little over 31pc of the proceeds from exports of textile manufactures were contributed by the intermediate products - cotton yarn and cotton cloth. Indicating continued surge in value-added products, this contribution was down by nearly 2pc.

Another noteworthy feature is the continued increase in unit prices of almost all the categories of textile manufactures. This is explained mainly by 11.94pc drop in the quantity of yarn exported, reducing the foreign exchange earnings ($310.97 million) by 1.26pc, in spite of 16.56pc increase in the proceeds of cotton cloth export ($497.07 million). In quantity, the figures show an improvement of 4.19pc.

Not very far behind cotton cloth were knitwear ($483.62 million) and bedwear ($488.48 million). In quantity, their exports went up by 29.42pc and 20.44pc but the foreign exchange fetched by them was up by 32.11pc and 25.75pc, respectively