Demand for Bangladesh's key export item – apparels – has declined owing to economic crunch in Europe and weak business season.
Export growth of some of Bangladesh's leading export items like knitwear, jute and jute products, woven garments, home textiles and footwear remained sluggish during the first quarter of the current fiscal that started on July 1, 2011.
During the first quarter, knitwear garments worth US$ 2.58 billion were shipped out of the country, which is reflective of a year-on-year rise of 18.26 percent, according to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data. Woven garments exports were valued at US$ 2.23 billion, a year-on-year rise of 24.82 percent.
As against the export target of US$ 6.27 billion set for the July-September quarter, Bangladesh earned US$ 6.17 billion in exports during the period.
The country's exports growing at a meagre rate of 2.29 percent reached US$ 1.44 billion during September, which is far below the target of US$ 1.87 billion set by the Government for the period.
During July this year, Bangladesh's exports grew at a whooping rate of 40.25 percent, but have been moving sluggishly since then. In August, exports grew at a year-on-year rate of 32.40 percent.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India