After about one and half years, Bangladesh home textile exporters have experienced a piece of good news, that the sector has finally bounced back to the positive trend in the year-on-year (YoY) export growth.
According to data disclosed by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) on Monday (4 March), exports of home textiles products posted a 9.9% YoY growth to $84.61 million in February this year, while the earnings were $77 million in the same month of last fiscal year.
Before this, the sector had last experienced a YoY growth 18 months ago.
The sector export earnings have been experiencing YoY negative growth since September 2022.
The EPB data mentioned that home textiles export earnings posted an 18.44% YoY negative growth to $84.96 million in September 2022.
After that, the earnings were declining every month.
Speaking to The Business Standard, Rashed Mosharraf, executive director of Zaber & Zubair Fabrics Ltd, said, “Home textile sector exports have been declining following the economic recession due to the Russia-Ukraine war since February 2022.
“Besides that, one of our major competitors Pakistan, is also getting an advantage over Bangladesh, due to currency exchange rates,” he added.
“Despite all the challenges, we are trying to shift some orders from other suppliers to countries like India and China, which also gave them positive feedback,” he said.
“Considering the order situation, the march onward for home textile export will be better than the last six months’ trends.”
The sales in the global market are also gradually improving, he added.
He also attributed the growth to getting orders from other markets.
