Readymade garment boom boosts Bangladesh’s export

BANGLADESH: Propelled by an impressive performance of the major readymade garment export sector, Bangladesh’s overall export earnings in October this year registered an astonishing growth of nearly 65 percent, the country ‘s Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) said Monday.

According to the figures released by the EPB, the country shipped goods worth around 1.69 billion U.S. dollars in October, the 4th month of the current fiscal year 2010-11 (July 2010-June 2011), which is around 273 million U.S. dollars more than that of September this year.

The figures also showed the October’s surge follows on the heels of over 26 percent increase in July when earning stood at 1. 82 billion U.S. dollars, highest exports recorded in a month since the country’s independence.

“We hope the booming trend in exports will continue unless there is any internal or external shock particularly which hampers our garment exports,” EPB’s senior official Md. Zakir Hossain told Xinhua.

He said exports in the first half of the current fiscal year would likely set new record as all indicators show sign of “robust growth” of major export items, such as woven and knitwear garments after their sluggish performances in the last fiscal year. As garment exports from Bangladesh in the back drop of global economic recession nose-dived, the country’s export growth in the last 2009-10 fiscal year (July 2009-June 2010) dipped to 4.11 percent year-on-year.

Garment exports make up more than three-fourths of the country’ s annual exports since the beginning of this decade. Any fall in their performances will cause slide in overall national exports.

Garment shipments from Bangladesh staged an impressive comeback since the final month of the last fiscal year 2009-10 as top global garment buyers increased their orders to Bangladesh manufacturers, finding its products cheapest in the world.

The EPB data showed knitwear and woven garments in July-October period this year grew more than 38 percent to 5.24 billion U.S. dollars with knitted items such as T-shirts growing 37.97 percent and woven items such as jeans 39.45 percent.

Apart from this, agri products, footwear, jute and jute goods, leather and leather goods, as well as frozen food items have also beat expectations, the EPB official said.

Together with other export items like textile fabrics, home textile such as bed-sheets and terry towel, the EPB data showed the country’s total exports in July-October period this year crossed 6.72 billion U.S. dollars, up 37.35 percent from the same period a year ago.

Bangladesh set export target in the current 2010-11 fiscal year at 18.50 billion U.S. dollars after the country fetched 16.20 billion U.S. dollars in export in the last 2009-10 fiscal year.

Dhaka, Monday, Xinhua