Bangladesh’s export earnings grow again on cheap knitwear amid vaccine hopes

With the West days away from rolling out coronavirus vaccines amid the holiday season, Bangladesh’s export earnings have shown signs of a rebound, posting 0.76 percent year-on-year growth in November.

The export earnings of over $3.07 billion last month, however, missed the target by 8.2 percent, according to data published by the Export Promotion Bureau on Thursday.

In the first five months of the current fiscal year, Bangladesh exported goods worth over $15.92 billion with an around 1 percent year-on-year growth.      

As much as 45 percent of the earning in the July-November period came from knitwear export while the contribution of overall readymade garment export, including woven and knitwear, was 81 percent.

Anwar-Ul-Alam Chowdhury Parvez, a former president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, however, thinks the pandemic crisis will continue to affect exports for several more months.

“We had thought that we would be able to make a total turnaround ahead of Christmas, but it won’t be possible now. The second wave (of coronavirus infections) has thrown all our calculations out of the window. Several countries have gone back into lockdown,” he said.

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He said the Western buyers are not purchasing or placing new orders much like they did in July, August and September.

“We are exporting cheap products now. The buyers are purchasing only the extremely necessary products. That’s why knitwear export has increased but the sale of woven products has dropped,” Parvez added.

Mohammad Hatem, vice-president at the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said knitwear export helped the overall export grow in November.

“It appears that the coronavirus vaccine will come quickly. Everyone is hoping that the situation will normalise. We also hope so,” he said.

Analyst Ahsan H Mansur thinks merely posting a growth is a “big thing” for Bangladesh now amid the raging pandemic.

“We must always keep in mind that export earnings dropped 17 percent in the last fiscal year from the previous year even though the coronavirus was yet to hit at the time,” he said.