Bangladesh’s exports grow 15% amid pandemic in 2020-21 fiscal

Bangladesh has earned more than $38.75 billion from exports with a 15.1 percent growth in 2020-21 fiscal year during the coronavirus pandemic.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 5 July 2021, 07:49 PM
Updated : 5 July 2021, 07:49 PM

Although the country missed the target by 5.5 percent, the growth has ignited hopes among the exporters with the factories open amid a nationwide lockdown to curb a surge in deadly infections.

After the pandemic hit exports in a locked down world in the second half of 2019-20, the entire FY21 went through the pandemic crisis, with much of it in efforts to recover from the effects of the outbreak.

“We, the owners and the workers, have continued production with courage although the situation is worse than last year,” said Faruque Hassan, president of garment exporters’ association BGMEA, recalling the long shutdown of factories last year.

“The government has also continued its support. So, it can be said that the growth in export earnings is a sign of turnaround in the pandemic.”

The readymade garment industry, which makes up more than 80 percent of the total exports, has posted a 12.55 percent growth by covering the losses in past few months, but the exports from the sector is still 7.84 percent behind the pre-pandemic level of 2018-19, according to him.Cheap knitwear products, however, have recovered to the level of normal times as the Bangladeshi entrepreneurs are getting orders from reopened markets of Europe and the US, he said.

Bangladesh’s export earnings in June were $3.67 billion, a rise of 31.77 percent from the same month last year, according to latest data released by the Export Promotion Bureau on Monday.

The contribution of the RMG sector to exports dropped to 81.16 percent in the last fiscal year from 84.2 percent in 2018-19.

The BGMEA president said it also augurs well for diversification of products, pointing out that jute, home textile and leather industries posted robust growths.