Exchange Rate Instability and Sectoral Exports: Evidence from Pakistan

Exports of a country is one of the main factors indicating economic health of a country and fluctuating exchange rates and relative price can significantly affect the level of exports and it is an alarming situation for a country when its exports are affected by exchange rate volatility. Impact of exchange rate volatility and relative price on trade has been a heated debate in the field of finance and most of work has been done on aggregate and bilateral trade. Few researches are found on product basis especially in the scenario of Pakistan. This research will provide an overview of the exports of 13 different products from Pakistan. Secondary data is used to analyze the impact of exchange rate instability on the exports of different products from Pakistan to all over the world. Significance of the study depends on the right choice of estimation method. We use auto regressive distributive lags (ARDL) method to check the relationship of two main variables. Glass, meat and paper & board products show that relative price affects negatively to exports so Government should make policies to strengthen the exports of these three products. Government can provide subsidies on these products in order to boost up the exports and make these products competitive in international market. Under the shadow of our results we conclude that exchange rate volatility has significant negative relationship with the exports of food processing machinery, grapes, meat and petroleum products so government needs to be focused on it when exchange rate are highly instable. Iron & steel bars show short run negative impact of exchange rate however this impact is adjusted in the long run.