Bangladesh RMG exports post modest growth in July

14 Aug '12

2 min read

Readymade garment (RMG) exports from Bangladesh registered a modest growth of 5.2 percent year-on-year during July 2012 due to a rise in orders from newly emerging markets.

During the month, Bangladesh exported garments worth US$ 1.99 billion. The loss of orders from Europe was offset by increasing orders from emerging nations.

Apparels accounted for about 82 percent of the country’s overall exports worth US$ 2.44 billion during July.

This helped Bangladesh’s exports to break the four-month declining streak and pushed the country’s overall exports up by 4.3 percent during July this year as compared to July 2011.

According to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the country benefited in trade with emerging markets like India, Russia, Brazil, Japan and South Africa.

Domestic exporters are trying to explore new markets to offset the loss in demand from recession-hit western markets, said BGMEA, which has 4,500 local garment factories as its members.

Over the past few years, Bangladesh’s economy and exports have flourished on the back of a remarkable shift in global garment orders from China to cost-effective Bangladesh, which ships about 70 percent of its garments to the EU and the US.

While Bangladesh’s garment exports for the fiscal that ended on June 30, 2012 grew by 6.6 percent to US$ 19 billion, its overall exports for the period soared by 5.9 percent to US$ 24.3 billion. Overall exports, however, fell short of the Government target of US$ 26.5 billion, due to a fall in demand for garments from key western markets.

For the current fiscal, the Government has fixed an export target of US$ 28 billion.

Availability of low-cost labour has helped Bangladesh to be a part of the global supply chain for low-end clothing for brands like JC Penney, Kohl’s, Tesco, Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Marks & Spencer and H&M.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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