Export earnings fall by 16.52pc in April

Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh’s export earnings witnessed another month of negative growth year-on-year as merchandise exports have plunged by 16.52 per cent in April followed by 2.49 per cent drop in March of the current financial year, according the latest data from Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) on Wednesday.

Bangladesh shipped out goods worth $3.96 billion in April of FY23, while it was $4.74 billion in the same month of the last fiscal year, as per EPB data.
Earlier in March this year, exports also declined by $119 million compared to the same month of the previous financial year.

The merchandise exports in April also failed to achieve its strategic target by 21.67 per cent which was initially targeted to reach $ 5.05 billion.
Despite the decline in April, overall export performance in last ten months of this fiscal year increased by 5.38 per cent year-on-year worth $ 45.677 billion which was $ 43.34 billion in the same period of the FY’22.

According to the business insiders, major reasons behind the downturn of exports in the last month were apparel demand fall across major markets, raging global inflation, Eid vacation, and of course lack of export diversity.

Shahidullah Azim, Vice-President, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) said to the journalists, “Apparel demand was low in the global market that’s why every factory is running with less capacity. Besides that, about 12 days were vacations in the appeal industry in the last month as it was the month of Ramzan and Eid ul-Fitr, which is reflected in the export earnings,” Considering the overall exports growth during last ten month of the current financial year it is seen that the RMG exports in the July-April grew by 9.09 per cent to $38.58 billion from $ 35.36 billion in the same period of the previous financial year. RMG exports in this period also surpassed the targeted amount by 1.05 per cent in this period.

Except the steady growth of RMG sector, the country’s export earnings from most of the major export products witnessed negative growth in the ten months of FY23. The export growth of current financial year basically positively moving based on the growth of RMG sector.

Export earnings from frozen and live fish decreased by 19.87 per cent. Only Shrimps export reduced by 24.21 per cent to $266.95 million from $352.24 million compared with in the first ten months of FY23 with the previous fiscal year, according to the recent data from EPB.

Besides, export earnings from agricultural products decreased by 28.81 per cent, handicrafts by 35.51 per cent. Specialised textiles exports reduced by 23.68 per cent, home textile went down by 16.99 per cent in the period of July-April of this financial year from the last fiscal year.

Meanwhile, country’s overall export earnings in last ten months of this fiscal year still far behind its strategic target of $58.00 billion as so far Bangladesh able achieve worth $45.68 billion of exports. Bangladesh shipped out $52.08 billion in last financial year of 2021-2022.