Bangladesh’s apparel exports to the United States in January witnessed robust growth in terms of both value and volume due to a surge in demand for knitwear items in the market.
The country’s RMG exports to the US in January 2022 increased by 45.53 per cent or $236 million to $755.71 million compared with that of $519.29 million in the same month of 2021, according to the US Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel data released on Tuesday.
Exporters expressed their satisfaction over the increased demand in the US market and said that some of the orders were shifting from China and Vietnam to Bangladesh.
They said that exports to the US would increase more as the demand for knitwear was rising in the market.
In terms of volume, the apparel export to the US from Bangladesh in the first month of this year grew by 42.17 per cent or 84 million square metres to 282 million square metres from 199 million square metres in the same month of 2021, the data showed.
‘No doubt, the export growth in the US market is encouraging but it should be more as the prices of raw materials have increased unexpectedly,’ Mohammad Hatem, executive president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told New Age on Thursday.
Prices of products increased in the market but the ratio is still lower than the price hike of raw materials, he said.
Hatem said that the exports of knitwear increased all over the world as the Covid pandemic created a demand for casual wear.
Before the pandemic, the share of knitwear and woven in the export market was the same but the share of knitwear would be 60 per within a short time, he said.
Hatem said that Bangladesh would receive more export orders in the coming months as production in China and Vietnam were interrupted due to a shortage of power.
The two countries are facing a shortage of coal to run their coal-based power plants and buyers are shifting their orders to other destinations, he added.
The OTEXA data showed that the total US imports of RMG from the world in January this year increased by 36.60 per cent to $7.54 billion compared with that of $5.52 billion in the same month of the previous year.
The US apparel import from China in the first month of 2022 grew by 47.11 per cent to $1.91 billion from $1.3 billion in the same month of the past year.
RMG imports by the US from Vietnam in January 2022 increased by $19.15 per cent to $1.27 billion from $1.07 billion in the same month of 2021.
India’s RMG exports to the US market in the first month of 2022 grew by 53.40 per cent to $441 million from $288 million in the same month of the previous year.
RMG imports by the US from Indonesia in January 2022 increased by 57.80 per cent to $435 million while import from Cambodia grew by 42.12 per cent to $326 million in the month, the data showed.
