India and Poland are on the track to become new billion-dollar export markets for Bangladesh in the current financial year 2018-19 due to extraordinary performance of readymade garment products.Exporters said that it was good news for Bangladesh as the country was getting two new billion-dollar markets, in addition to the nine billion-dollar markets.They said it is a good sign for export sector as along with traditional markets, Bangladesh’s export is increasing to non-traditional markets. Country’s export earnings from India in the first nine months of FY 19 stood at $985.32 million which was 59.72 per cent higher than $616.90 million earnings in the same period of last fiscal, according to the statistics of Export Promotion Bureau.Readymade garment export to India grew by 96.50 per cent to $401.14 million from $204.14 million in the period. Export to Poland in July-March of FY 19 grew by 27.88 per cent to $924.85 million from $723.18 million in the same period of FY 18. RMG export to Poland in nine months of the FY 19 increased by 32.35 per cent to $854.36 million from $645.49 million in the same period of last fiscal, data showed.Earnings from both countries will easily cross $1 billion mark in next three months of the FY, said EPB officials. ‘It is a good sign for Bangladesh as export id increasing in new markets and helpfully Bangladesh would get more billion-dollar markets in future,’ Mahmud Hasan Khan Babu, vice president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told New Age on Thursday.He hoped that Bangladesh’s RMG export to India would increase more in coming days as good numbers of global brands were opening stores there. Another readymade garment exporter, wishing not to be named, said that export to Poland increased huge as good quantity of RMG products were being re-exported to other European countries from Poland. Country’s export earnings in last FY 18 stood at $36.66 billion and the earnings were mostly concentrated to the eight billion-dollar markets — United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Japan.Along with Japan, export to Belgium also reached to billion-dollar in the FY 16 but latter on the export growth in the country had failed and slipped from the position. The EPB data showed that export earnings from United States maintained a moderate growth and the earnings in July-March period of FY 19 grew by 16.97 per cent to $5.16 billion.RMG export to the US, the largest export destination for Bangladesh, stood $4.60 billion in first nine months of FY 19, which was 17.03 per cent higher than $3.93 billion in the same period of FY 18.Mahmud said that export to US would grow more as buyers continued to shift their orders from China to other countries including Bangladesh due to trade tension between US and China. Export to Germany, the second largest export destination for Bangladesh, in July-March of FY 19 grew by 8.93 per cent to $4.85 billion from $4.45 billion in the same period of FY 18.RMG exports to the market in the period increased by 9.20 per cent to $4.59 billion. Export earnings from the United Kingdom, the third largest export destination for Bangladesh, in nine months of FY 19 achieved a minimal growth of 3.63 per cent to $3.15 billion while RMG export in the market stood $2.91 billion with a 2.32 per cent growth in the period.The BGMEA vice president said that export growth to UK shrink due to the tension of Brexit. He said that Brexit created an uncertainty in the economy and consumers hold up their purchase.According to the EPB data, export to Japan in the July-March of FY 19 grew by 27.18 per cent to $1.07 billion from $847.85 million in the same period of FY 18.Earnings from China in the first nine months of FY 19 increased by 28.41 per cent to $651.28 million from $507.19 million in the same period of last fiscal.
