Bangladesh export earnings cross $18b in 10 months

Exports grew by 40.81 percent in 10 months of the current fiscal year, compared to the same period a year ago, the commerce ministry said on Monday.

A report of the Export Promotion Bureau shows the country exported goods worth $18,243 million during July-April of the current 2010-11 fiscal, up from $12,949 million in the same period of 2009-10.

The government data shows that in April alone, exports grew by 45.56 percent, compared to the same month of the previous year, to $2.04 billion.

Shipment of major items including knitwear, woven or cut and sew garments, jute and jute goods, home textiles, frozen food, shrimp and leather goods increased significantly during the July-April period.

A senior official of the Export Promotion Bureau said strong increase on the shipment of garments continued in April as Bangladeshi exporters had plenty of orders in hands in the last months of 2010.

'With high cost of raw materials raising the price of finished garments, shipment in terms of value increased sharply in the past half year,' he told New Age replying to a question.

Readymade garments consist around four-fifths of the entire export earnings. The EPB report says knitwear sector earned $7.13 billion, which is a 45.89 percent rise from the same period in the previous year while woven garment exports grew to $6.61 billion, up 38.59 percent compared to the same period last year.

The EPB report also shows that jute and jute goods export rose to $925 million in July-April 2010-11, growing 42 percent year-on-year, home textile exports rose to $636 million, growing 98 percent, frozen foods to $511 million, up 54 percent and footwear export grew by 49 percent to $243 million.

Despite most major items showed significant rise in shipment, some items suffered negative growths in exports. Among such significant items, export earning from terry towels declined by 11 percent to $102 million, bicycle 13 percent to $81 million and tea 52 percent to $2.6 million.

EPB had set an export target to earn $18.5 billion for the current fiscal year, which is 14.16 percent more than the actual earnings last year.

But export sector insiders predicted that earnings would cross $22 billion by the end of this fiscal.

During 2009-10, the total export earnings were $16.2 billion against a target of $17.6 billion but real earnings were 4.11 percent higher than the earnings of 2008-2009 fiscal year.

Source: New Age

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