According to Export Promotion Bureau latest statistics July- January export performance in the current financial year exceeded its target with readymade garment’s strong dominance. During this time in the overall US$24.18 billion export, share for readymade garments (RMG) is highest $20.22 billion with its 14.51 per cent growth. Overall export during the first seven months in the last fiscal was $21.32 billion and for the current financial year, the July-January target is $22.41 billion. After garments, the other leading products are agricultural products, leather and leather goods, leather footwear, pharmaceuticals, shrimps, jute and jute yarns, bed and kitchen toiletries, home textiles, engineering products and many others. Inamul Haq Khan, Director of the BGMEA while sharing his view regarding the government’s target of earning $50 billion from RMG by 2021 said though RMG export has exceeded the target it is difficult to the meet for exporting $50 billion by 2021. He said, “If the existing growth trend continues, we may be able to export around $44 billion by 2021 with a maximum $6 billion shortfall from achievement.”Inamul said as prices are competitive in the international market, Bangladesh despite its growing volume id not earning much due to low prices. He said to accelerate growth it is imperative to devalue local currency against dollars and need incentives for the exporters that they can target more market in competition with other countries in prices. According to the EPB data Bangladesh’s export growth during first seven months of the current financial year is 13.39 per cent and in January the export performance was $3.68 billion with 7.95 per cent growth over the corresponding month of last financial year of $3.41billion.During this time among others, jute posted negative growth that during July-June period its performance was $498.66 million from its earlier $661.86 million. Engineering products posted $199.36 million during the time, frozen fish $361 million, agriculture products $579.61 million, leather and leather goods $626.42 million and petroleum products $177.28 million. Siddique Islam, President, BGMEA said, “We have urged the government for several supports to achieve $50 billion targets in the next two years.”He said in coming two years it would not be possible to earn $50 billion from the RMG sector with existing growth.
