Pakistan ranks in the top ten producers of 13 commodities: cotton (#5, 7% of world output in 2023), dates (#5, 6.1% of world output in 2024), sesame seed (#5, 6.5% of world output in 2024), mangoes (#6, 3.5% of world output in 2024), sugar (#6, 3.6% of world output in 2023), tobacco (#6, 3.1% of world output in 2024) and more. It is a top-ten exporter of rice (#3, 10% of world export value in 2024), chromium (#4, 1.6% of world export value in 2024), sesame seed (#7, 4.1% of world export value in 2024), mangoes (#10, 2.7% of world export value in 2024).
Share of world production, 2023. Countries with no reported production are unshaded.
Almost everything Pakistan grows depends on water diverted from one river system. The Indus canal network, begun under British administration in the 1860s and greatly extended after the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 gave Pakistan the western rivers and paid for link canals and the Tarbela and Mangla dams, irrigates a contiguous area larger than any comparable system in the world. Rainfall in the Punjab and Sindh plains is too low and too concentrated to support the cropping pattern without it. The standard rotation is cotton or rice in the summer and wheat in the winter, which is why the same provinces appear in several commodity tables at once. Pakistan produced 4.0% of the world's wheat in 2024 (FAOSTAT), consumed almost entirely at home as the staple.
Rice is the export crop. Long-grain aromatic basmati, grown in the Punjab rice belt where the cool nights of late summer let the grain elongate, sells at a premium to Gulf and European buyers, while coarse varieties go in bulk to East and West Africa. Pakistan grew 1.8% of the world's rice in 2024 (FAOSTAT) but held 10% of world rice export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), a much larger share of the trade than of the crop.
Cotton shows the system under strain. The crop underpins a textile industry that is the country's largest manufacturing employer, but yields have fallen under pest pressure, heat and the flooding of 2022, so the spinning mills buy the difference abroad. Pakistan produced 7.0% of the world's cotton in 2023 (FAOSTAT) and at the same time took 11% of world cotton import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI). Cane grown along the canals gave 3.6% of world sugar production in 2023 (FAOSTAT), a thirsty crop in a water-short basin, protected by support prices and periodically exported at a loss.
Edible oil is the largest agricultural import. Domestic oilseed output has never been close to demand for cooking fat, and Pakistan bought 7.0% of world palm oil import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), most of it hardened into the vegetable ghee used in South Asian cooking.
Pakistan's largest commodity exports by value, with share of world exports for each line (CEPII BACI, 2024). Bars show share of world trade in that commodity, not share of the country's exports.
Tea: #1, 8.2% of world imports, $624.2 million (2024)
Chickpeas: #2, 12% of world imports, $303.8 million (2024)
Jute: #3, 11% of world imports, $22.5 million (2024)
Palm oil: #3, 7% of world imports, $3 billion (2024)
Cotton: #4, 11% of world imports, $1.9 billion (2024)
Ginger: #6, 4.8% of world imports, $63 million (2024)
Lentils: #9, 2.6% of world imports, $107.5 million (2024)
Silk: #9, 1.6% of world imports, $6 million (2024)
Canola: #10, 2.9% of world imports, $385.8 million (2024)
Cardamom: #10, 2.3% of world imports, $29.2 million (2024)
Sources: FAOSTAT (crops and livestock), USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (minerals), Energy Institute Statistical Review (energy) for production; CEPII BACI for trade. Ranks count only the commodities on this site.
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This country's rankings as JSON. Cite as: Commodity Origins, "What does Pakistan produce and export?", https://commodityorigins.com/countries/PAK/ (CC BY 4.0).