Pakistan's cement makers have opened the new fiscal year on a firmer footing abroad. Cement exports rose by 9.58% year-on-year to $38.212m in July 2026, the first month of the 2026-27 financial year, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). Yet the gain was overshadowed by the wider trade picture, in which imports grew almost twice as fast as exports, leaving the country's merchandise deficit at nearly $3.95bn for the month.

The improvement in cement earnings compares with exports worth $34.87m in July 2025. Volumes also increased, with shipments reaching 985,180 tonnes, according to the PBS, which put growth in quantity at 11.96%. The figures suggest that foreign demand for Pakistani cement held up at the start of the fiscal year.

The monthly comparison was even more striking. Cement exports jumped by 42.87% from June 2026, when they stood at $26.746m. The rebound points to a strong pickup in overseas sales after a comparatively weak end to the previous fiscal year.

Cement's performance broadly tracked the national trend. Pakistan's overall exports rose by 9.54% year-on-year in July, reaching $2.939bn compared with $2.683bn a year earlier. The building material thus grew at almost exactly the same pace as the country's total exports.

Imports, however, expanded far more rapidly. Purchases from abroad climbed by 17.99% to $6.887bn in July, up from $5.837bn in the same month of 2025. The import bill is now well over double the value of exports.

That imbalance is the more pressing concern. A near-10% rise in export earnings, from cement and other goods alike, has done little to narrow a gap driven by a surging appetite for foreign products. For the cement industry, July's numbers offer modest encouragement; for the economy as a whole, they underline how far exports still have to run to keep pace with imports.