BGMEA desperate to get market access in US

Staff Reporter :
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) is desperate to get duty-free access to their produced goods in the US market.
Ensuring the facility to the market, the apex trade body of the apparel sector has sent letters to various influential senators seeking duty-free access to their apparel made of US cotton.
Along with the letters, the BGMEA president is also lobbying with the influential business communities of the USA.
The measures taken by the BGMEA is mainly for remaining competitive after LDC graduation in 2026 as the local exporters will face nearly 12 per cent duty on shipments to the European counties if Bangladesh cannot obtain GSP plus benefits.
In letters, BGMEA President Farque Hasan said that a significant share of Bangladesh’s apparel is made of cotton and it exported around $32.86 billion worth of cotton garments, which is 71.89 per cent of its total export.
Despite the challenges including Covid-19, our apparel export to the world has increased by 8.73 per cent in last ten years which reflects the fact we have further potential in the world market, the BGMEA president said in the letters.
Bangladesh does not grow much cotton and almost 99 per cent of cotton need for export oriented readymade garment (RMG) industry is met by import. In 2022, Bangladesh imported 4080 million pounds of cotton from the world of which almost 409 million pounds were imported from USA.
On the other hand, the US’s apparel import from Bangladesh reached $9.79 billion in 2022, of which $6.91 billion worth of apparel was made of cotton. It means Bangladesh is one of the major suppliers of cotton-made apparel to the USA.
Besides, the US importers had to pay $1.55 billion worth of duty to import $9.74 billion worth of apparel from Bangladesh and the average duty on all imported goods
from the country was the highest in 2022. “As Bangladesh depends greatly on its access to foreign markets and clothing industry remains the driving force behind our exports and economic growth, we urged the USA to consider duty free access to apparel goods made of American cotton,” Faruque Hasan said.
Given our growth potentials and duty free facilities of cotton in Bangladesh, the US cotton growers and exporters can further exploit opportunities if duty free access is granted to apparel made of US cotton, he added.
Besides, the proposed duty free treatment will benefit US cotton through increased demand and earning premium price, he said.