‘Lack of updated information hampers export exploration’

Al Amin :
Lack of updated information about the Bangladeshi potential goods in the International Trade Centre (ITC) website is undermining the country’s export exploration, businesses said.

They said that Bangladesh exports 729 goods to 161 countries while imports around 50 products including raw materials, capital machineries and food items from different countries.

But, there is no updated information about the country’s prospective goods in the website of the global business hub.

As a result, the global buyers are remaining in the dark about the Bangladeshi goods, market, export capacity and products’ value, which is hampering the country’s export potentiality, they opined.

Following this, the authority of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) recently sent a letter to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to take initiative in this regard.

A H M Ahsan, Vice-Chairman of the EPB, told The New Nation, “NBR is yet to inform us about the letter. We have requested the NBR to post updated export-import data for the sake of developing the country’s export basket.”

Bangladesh export-import activities have been hampering since the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The country is also facing severe dollar crisis due to low export earnings and inflow of remittances.

Rebounding from the situation, the country has no alternative way but to increase export earnings by diversifying goods and markets, experts think.

In order to find new markets, the exporters search buyers and markets on their own initiative. Apart from this, the government-appointed missions and commercial council offices in various countries also look for buyers for domestic entrepreneurs.

Various fairs, business weeks and delegations of foreign businessmen participated in the promotion of Bangladeshi products. But these are not enough to meet the country’s export target as the foreign buyers search information about the interested countries and products on the website of the ITC), they said.

But, there is no updated information about the Bangladeshi goods on the website, which is undermining the country’s export potentiality, they added.

Regarding the EPB’s letter, NBR officials said they have discussed the issue and the NBR is looking into whether it has jurisdiction to post the export-import information on the ITC website or not.

The EBP letter said that the ITC website is the dependable site for the international trade as updated information of the potential goods of the different countries has posted here.

So, the export-import information of Bangladesh on the ITC website will make it readily available to foreign buyers, which can be helpful in expanding the exporting products of the country.

Bangladesh has already crossed $50 billion export-mark and it is now eyeing for crossing $100 billion mark.