Post quotas era has witnessed Pakistan surging ahead of even China to become top supplier of cotton sheets.
A huge 539 percent jump was registered in US imports of cotton bed sheets from Pakistan while overall US imports in value terms grew from US$324 million in January-July 2004 to US$537 million in the same period of 2005.
Pakistani exports rose at the cost of India and Thailand while China went on consolidating exports to the US at 290 percent in volume terms over the period.
Cotton sheet shipments rose only by 17.50% in 2004, however, imports nearly doubled in the first seven months this year in volume terms.
Sources attribute rise in shipments mainly due to the elimination of textile quotas since January 1, 2005.
Europe? anti-dumping policy caused problems for Pakistan? cotton sheet exporters and they thus had to drive hard for US market undercutting their prices and overcame Chinese competition, successfully.
Notably, the average unit value of imported Pakistani sheets dropped from US$6.97 per item in January-July 2004 down to US$4.53 in the same period this year, which is a 35 percent decline.
As against this, the Chinese prices fell by 37 percent to US$6.94 per piece that saw Pakistani prices remain 35 percent below Chinese prices.
Chinese share of the US import market rose from 9.36 percent to 18.83 percent while Pakistani share jumped from 11 percent to 36 percent.
As the third ranked supplier, India during January-July, lost out on volume market but Indian suppliers moved to high-value products compared with Pakistani suppliers.
