After last year’s decline, apparel exports to the USA rebounded in the first seven months of the year helped by political stability and ongoing safety measures, industry people said. Shipments of local garment products to its single largest destination reached US$ 3.19 billion during January to July of 2015 marking an 8.51 per cent growth, data from the Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) under the US Department of Commerce showed. The earnings stood at $ 2.94 billion during the same period of last year. Bangladesh apparel exports to the US fell to $ 4.83 billion in 2014 from $ 4.94 billion in 2013. Although Bangladesh’s garment export income from the US market grew by 8.51 per cent over those of the last year, they is still lower than those of the competing countries, industry insiders said.
And the prices of locally-made apparel items did not increase in line with the rising production cost, they added. Apparel exports to the US by Vietnam, India and Sri Lanka grew by 14.94 per cent, 9.63 per cent and 16.10 per cent respectively. Vietnam’s earnings stood at $ 5.94 billion during the first seven months of 2015, which was $ 5.17 billion during the same period of 2014, according to the OTEXA data. India exported garments worth $ 2.33 billion against $ 2.12 billion in the same period of 2014. Sri Lanka fetched $1.17 billion, which was $ 1.01 billion in the same period of last year, it revealed. On the other hand, Chinese apparel export grew by 2.34 per cent to $ 15.95 billion during January to July of 2015 from $ 15.59 billion in the last year. The recent industrial accidents, confrontational politics made the US buyers a little bit puzzled and they were in a ‘wait and watch’ situation before placing orders, industry people said. “But the safety initiatives that are going on and a stable political situation helped us regain the buyers’ confidence resulting in a gradual increase in orders in recent times,” vice president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) Shahidullah Azim said recently. Accord and Alliance have completed their initial inspection and remediation work to fix the flaws is going on, he said, adding the inspection programme under the national initiative would end by next month.
