Export earnings post $19.19b in seven months

01-17

The country’s export earnings in the July-January period of the financial year 2015-16 hit $19.19 billion with 7.85 per cent rise from $17.79 billion in the same period of the FY15, showed provisional data of the Export Promotion Bureau.
According to the data, scheduled to be released today, the earnings from readymade garment exports in the first seven months of the FY16 amounted to $15.76 billion with more than 9 per cent growth from $14.44 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
The data showed that the earnings from woven in the first seven months in the FY16 grew by 12.29 per cent to $8.16 billion from $7.26 billion in the same period of the FY15.
The earnings from knitwear in the July-January period increased by 5.9 per cent to $7.60 billion from $7.17 billion in the same period of the FY15.
Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur told New Age on Sunday that the export earnings growth was not bad to achieve the target but it needed to be increased more.
He said that the export earnings increased from the woven garments due to rebound in the US market over the last couple of months as the US imports woven products in bigger volume from Bangladesh.
‘I thing the export earnings target set by the government will be achieved but not exceed,’ Mansur said.
Shahidullah Azim, former vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said the export
earnings growth from the garment sector was satisfactory and the earnings in the FY16 was likely to hit $28 billion exceeding the $27.36 billion target set by the government.
He said that there were two reasons to increase earnings from woven garment: one was the recovery of the US economy from meltdown and the second was higher value of the woven products than knit ones.
‘I am optimistic that the export earnings target in the FY16 will exceed the government set target of $33.5 billion,’ Azim said.
Source: New Age