Expert terms it unambitious, inconsistent with 7th 5-Year Plan
The government on Thursday set the export earnings target at $37 billion for the financial year 2016-17, envisaging 8.06 per cent growth in the period.
The target for this financial year has been set based on a commendable performance by the readymade garment sector in the just concluded financial year 2015-16 when the sector contributed $28.09 billion to the country’s total export earnings of $34.24 billion.
Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed announced the export earnings target at a press conference at the ministry conference room in Dhaka.
An expert, however, termed the government-set export target unambitious and inconsistent with the seventh Five-Year Plan.
According to the commerce minister’s announcement, the RMG export target has been set at $30.37 billion for FY17 which is $2.28 billion higher than the earnings the sector posted in FY16.
The ministry set $14.16 billion export earnings from knitwear while $16.20 billion from woven garments with 6.09 per cent and 9.96 per cent growth respectively.
Earnings from leather and leather products have been set at $1.22 billion with 5.09 per cent growth while earnings from home textile at $775 million and jute and jute goods at $964 million for FY17.
Tofail said the export target for the next financial year has been set considering some national and international factors including trend of export growth during the last five years, slow recovery in global economy, low commodity prices on the global market, fallouts from the UK’s exit from the European Union and possible impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty.
‘We had set $33.50 billion export earnings target for the financial year 2015-16 but the earnings surpassed the target and stood at $34.24 billion. Like the previous year, the export target will be achieved in this financial year,’ he said.
Tofail said that the volume of exports in FY16 grew by 88.54 per cent to 6.90 billion units from 3.66 billion units in the previous financial year.
He said that the country’s export earnings could increase to $40 billion if the euro was not devalued against the US dollar.
The commerce minister said that the volume of RMG export in FY16 increased by 124.82 per cent to 3.53 billion units from 1.57 billion units in FY15 but the prices of Bangladeshi RMG were not increased on the global market.
Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of Policy Research Institute, told New Age that the government-set export target for FY17 was ‘extremely unambitious’ and inconsistent with the government’s seventh Five-Year Plan.
The government should set an ambitious target and formulate policy to achieve that target, he said adding the $30.37-billion RMG export earnings target set for this fiscal year was also inconsistent with the targeted $50 billion export earnings by 2021.
Mansur said that the 4 per cent export earnings growth target would not be helpful in generating employment in the country.
Source: New Age
