Exports jump 10pc in Feb
Export earnings jumped 10.12 percent year-on-year to $3.39 billion in February thanks to higher shipments of garment items.
The figure is also 7.13 percent higher than the monthly target of $3.15 billion, according to data from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) yesterday.
In the first eight months of 2018-19, garment export rose 14.17 percent to $23.12 billion, of which $11.50 billion came from knitwear and $11.63 billion from woven garment.
Export receipts during the period also increased 12.98 percent year-on-year to $27.56 billion, which is also 7.81 percent higher than the target of $25.56 billion.
“We expected to earn more from garment export as the trend was very promising,” said Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, a garment makers' platform.
The export earnings may not increase at the same rate in the next two months, he said. “It may hover between 10 percent and 12 percent, as exports usually get slower in March and April.”
From May onwards, the retailers and brands will start placing an increased volume of work orders for the next summer, he said.
At the end of the current fiscal year, the garment export may post an average growth of 12 percent, he said.
The factories will receive a lot of work orders in the coming years because of remediation and improvement of the safety standards, he said.
The image of the garment sector before the buyers brightened because of the completion of the remediation works as per the recommendations of the Accord and Alliance engineers, he said.
The local factory owners have also expanded their production capacity to keep pace with the increasing amount of work orders, he said.
“Currently, we have the capacity to cater to $45 billion worth of garment items.”
One of the major changes that the sector witnessed over the last few years is a shift to value added garment items from basic items, Rahman said.
Of the total export of garment items from Bangladesh in a year, nearly 50 percent is high-end.
Usually, the prices of high-end garment items are higher than that of the basic garment items, he said.
Exports of some other goods also increased in the last eight months. Frozen fish and live fish shipments increased by 2.87 percent year-on-year to $394.03 million.
Exports of vegetables, pharmaceuticals, handicrafts, cotton products, carpets, terry towels, ceramics and furniture also rose during the period.
On the other hand, leather and leather goods and jute and jute goods have failed to perform as per expectations although they have the potential to earn more than $1 billion each at the end of the fiscal year.
In the eight months to February, export earnings from leather products declined by 11.5 percent year-on-year to $694.72 million and jute and jute goods fell by 24.36 percent year-on-year to $560.56 million.