Despite slowdown in growth, Bangladesh retained the five per cent share of the global clothing export in 2014. The country also continued to remain the third largest clothing exporter after China and European Union (EU). The International Trade Statistics 2015, released by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last week, revealed these. The data shows the export of ready-made garments (RMG) from Bangladesh registered 4.60 per cent growth last year compared to the previous year. In 2013 the growth was around 13 per cent. But the share of Bangladeshi RMG in the global export market stood at 5.1 per cent last year, unchanged from that in 2013. Vietnam, which registered 14 per cent growth in the export of RMG last year, grabbed 4.0 per cent of the global markets.
The country’s share was 3.7 per cent in 2013.BD retains 5.1pc share of global clothing export. India, despite registering 19 per cent growth in RMG export last year, marginally increased its global share to 3.70 per cent from 3.65 per cent in 2013. Turkey posted 8.0 per cent growth in RMG export last year. The country’s share increased to 3.5 per cent from 3.3 per cent in 2013. The WTO annual statistics also shows that China continued to be the top clothing exporter in the world clinching 38.6 per cent share of the global market. The EU, economic union of 28 European countries, became the second largest clothing exporter with 26.2 per cent share of the global market. Although the WTO ranked the EU the second largest clothing exporter, segregation of the data of each country of the bloc would mean that Bangladesh would be the second largest exporter. The WTO statistics, however, did not provide any segregated data on the EU member countries’ clothing export. Vietnam, India and Turkey ranked fourth, fifth and sixth largest clothing exporters. The other exporters on the top-10 list are Indonesia, the United States, Cambodia and Pakistan ranked seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th respectively.
