Bangladesh garment exporters hope for a rebound by December

Business Desk :
Bangladesh garment exporters are not worried over falling behind their peers in Vietnam in overseas sales as they hope exports will rebound by December, buoyed by demand in the Western world ahead of Christmas.
They also dream of having an ‘opportunity’ to have a bigger market share in the United States, as China, which dominates the US market, is having a ‘trade war’ with it.
As the coronavirus pandemic has upended the world economy, it affected the exports too. People stopped buying clothes after their income collapsed. Big fashion houses are yet to reopen. Only some online shops have opened their business, reports bdnews24.com.
Under the present circumstances, there will be a downward trend in the garment exports in August and September. But exports will get a boost from Christmas sales in December.
Vietnam exported about $30 billion of garment products between July and June, surpassing Bangladesh that shipped about $28 billion of clothes, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam and the Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau.
Vietnam, therefore, superseded Bangladesh as the second-largest garment exporter, a crown the South Asian country held for a long time.
In Bangladesh, garments account for about 85 per cent of its export proceeds. The fall of Bangladesh from the second position came as bad news to local manufacturers.
“We’re operating at 60-70 per cent of our capacity at present. We’re getting work orders, but not enough. Only the basic items are exported now. Big fashion houses haven’t opened yet,” said Anwarul-Alam-Chowdhury Parvez, former president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
Global exports have shrunk, but the coronavirus pandemic has hit the exports from China the most as clothing shipments declined at least 49 per cent between January and June this year. For Bangladesh, the decrease was 18 per cent. Vietnam, that superseded Bangladesh in garment exports, lost 11.7 per cent of exports in the six months.
“We’re not worried at all that Vietnam surpassed us in garment exports. It is not the absolute number of exports but the growth that matters. The question is, if we can reach our target or if we’re making enough growth,” Chowdhury said.
As Bangladesh experienced continuous year-on-year growth, the export earnings reached $34.13 billion in fiscal 2018-19. It declined to $32.83 billion in fiscal 2019-20 due to the pandemic.
“All we need to do now is to tackle the challenges created by the pandemic. Then we may reap some good results from it. We need to use this opportunity and both the government and the private sector must start working on a long-term plan to ensure it,” said Chowdhury, also president of Bangladesh Chamber of Industries.
“China has been engaged in a trade war with the US for quite a long time, which intensified during the coronavirus pandemic. If the US stops or reduces buying garment from China, Bangladesh may have a bigger market there,” Chowdhury explained.
“This will be a ‘golden chance’ for Bangladesh to grab a share of the Chinese garment market in the US,” he said.
China has been reducing its garment exports to the US gradually after the trade war began, but it nosedived after the coronavirus epidemic broke out in Wuhan in December, according to the US Department of Commerce Office of Textile and Apparel.
Last year China exported readymade garment worth $24.88 billion to the US market and had a 9.0 per cent reduction in export that time. The Chinese export decreased 36 per cent in January this year due to the Covid-19 outbreak. China exported garments worth $3.89 billion to the US in the first four months of the current year, which is 46 per cent less than the last year.