Bangladesh’s readymade garment exports to the United States have witnessed robust growth in 2021 due to an increased shipment of knitwear products.
Apparel imports by the US from Bangladesh in October 2021 increased by 29.5 percent or $158.18 million to $694.13 million from $535.94 million in the same month of 2020, according to the US Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel data.
Bangladesh’s RMG exports to the US in January-October of 2021 increased by 26.74 percent or $1.20 billion to $5.69 billion from $4.49 billion in the same period of 2020.
Exporters said that apparel exports to the US started growing from the beginning of 2021 due to the increased shipment of knitwear products.
Before the Covid pandemic, Bangladesh’s woven garments were the main import items for the US but recently brands and buyers have started importing knit products in huge quantities from Bangladesh, they said.
Exporters also said that the price hike of raw materials increased the unit prices of apparel products, which helped the exports grow in value.
‘Bangladesh’s readymade garment exporters usually shipped woven products to the US market but after the first wave of coronavirus, the US buyers increased their imports of knitwear products from us,’ Md Fazlul Hoque, a former president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told New Age.
He said that the US buyers shifted their sourcing of knitwear products from China and Bangladesh gained a portion of the business amid the pandemic.
‘Before pandemic, our business was totally Europe-centric but now 70 percent of our products go to the US market and 30 percent to the EU market,’ Fazlul said.
He also said that the price hike of raw materials increased the unit prices of RMG products and that helped Bangladesh show a healthy export growth in value.
The data showed that the total US imports of RMG from the world in January-October of 2021 increased by 24 percent to $66.91 billion from $53.95 billion in the same period of the previous year.
The US apparel import from China in the 10 months of 2021 grew by 25.11 percent to $16 billion from $12.79 billion in the same period of the previous year.
RMG imports by the US from Vietnam in the 10 months of 2021 increased by $13.52 percent to $12.15 billion from $10.71 billion in the same period of 2020.
India’s RMG exports to the US market in January-October of 2021 increased by 33.72 percent to $3.45 billion from $2.58 billion in the same period of 2020.
Apparel exports by Cambodia to the US in January-October of 2021 increased by 18.77 percent to $2.82 billion from $2.37 billion in the same period of the previous year, the data showed.
RMG imports by the US from Indonesia in the 10 months of 2021 increased by 10.36 percent to $3.35 billion from $3.03 billion in the same period of 2020.
