The country's export earnings witnessed a record high to stand at $$47.17 billion during the July-April in the current fiscal year of 2021-22, up 34.09 percent over the same period of the previous fiscal.
The exports stood at $3.83 billion in May this year which increased by 23.24 percent than $3.10 billion of May last year, according to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data released on Thursday.
Experts said the country’s export earnings continued an upward trend for the last several months in the current fiscal 2021-22 even during the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to a strong rebound in apparel shipment.
The country’s export earnings stood at $38.52 billion from the ready-made garments (RMG) in July-April this fiscal, up around 34.87 percent over the previous fiscal. This earning was $28.56 billion during the same period in the 2020-21 fiscal year.
The overall export earnings also surpassed the set target by 19.61 percent for the first 11 months of the current fiscal, according to EPB data.
A breakdown of the clothing-sector performance shows that the knitwear subsector of the RMG earned $20.98 billion from exports in the first 11 months of the current fiscal, posing a growth of 36.61 percent.
Earnings from the export of woven garments amounted to $17.53 billion during the time, up by 32.85 percent. Home textile products are the second-largest export after readymade garments.
Md Mohiuddin Rubel, director of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), said, “The overall export growth is showing a continuous positive growth trend which is really inspiring, but currently there are certain challenges we are facing. Due to ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, increased raw material price and the prevailing energy situation are making the situation complicated.”
“Moreover, During Covid-19, people have to stay at home for a long period,” he said, adding that after the lockdown they used to shop more which is one of the reasons behind this unusual growth in previous months. But currently that scenario has started to come to the normal level, he mentioned.
“Also, due to increase the price of materials, countries are facing inflation problem. What we foresee is that order volume is not like how we have seen in previous few months, growth is slowing down, May export data already shows the decline in growth. We need to work on how we can retain the growth pace in longer term,” he further said.
“Though price is slightly better but not at par with our increased cost of production,” he said, adding that we need to focus more on improving efficiency (both process efficiency and workers efficiency), modernize our factories and develop skills.
In the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, home-textile exports also recorded 41.30 percent growth to $1.46 billion. In addition, the third-highest export income has been in agricultural processed products.
From July-May of the current fiscal year, agricultural processed products worth $1.10 billion were exported. In this case, the growth has been 21.51 percent.
The exports of leather and leather products stood at $1.11billion during the time, up 31.85 percent over the same period of previous fiscal.
Meanwhile, the jute sector, which demonstrated positive growth throughout the last fiscal, recorded a 3.19 percent fall in the July-January period with earnings of $1.05 billion, down from $1.09 billion.
