Published in New Age on Tuesday, 11 March 2014.
Export earning growth falls for third month in Feb
Staff Correspondent
The country’s export earning growth declined for the third month in February of the current financial year 2013-14 due to sluggish readymade garment export growth caused by the affect of political unrest in previous few months.
The export earning in February stood at $2.38 billion growing by 6.36 per cent compared with the same month of the previous FY13 when the earning growth was 13.23 per cent year-on-year.
The February’s earning was also 3.76 per cent lower than the $2.48-billion target set by the government, showed the Export Promotion Bureau data released on Monday.
The export growth of December and January in the FY14 were 10.54 per cent and 7.81 per cent respectively while the export earning growth in the same period of the FY13 were 19.44 per cent and 18.81 per cent respectively.
The overall export earnings in the July-February period of the current financial year, however, stood at $19.82 billion with a growth of 13.96 per cent against $17.40 billion of the same period of the FY13.
‘The export earning during the last three months is the reflection of political turmoil which had taken place in October, November and December last year and the sluggish export growth may continue in next one or two months,’ Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur told New Age on Monday.
The overall export growth till now is satisfactory, but the export growth in single month declined as the growth of RMG export decreased, he said.
It is also a concern that the export growth in non-RMG products continued to remain slow, Ahsan said.
He, however, said the fall of export growth might be temporary and it might rebound within two or three months as the RMG buyers started to increase their volume of orders.
According to the EPB data, the readymade garment export (knit and woven) in February of the FY14 rose by 9.74 per cent to $1.96 billion against $1.79 billion in the same period of the FY13. Garment export growth in February in the FY13 was 11.56 per cent.
Centre for Policy Dialogue executive director Mustafizur Rahman told New Age that the fall in export growth might have caused due to discounts offered during the political turmoil and also the negative growth in the Non-RMG products.
‘But it’s a good sign for the country that we did not experience drastic fall in the export earnings after Rana Plaza disaster as the two major sectors — RMG and leather — played a significant role to retain the export growth ,’ he said.
To rebound the export growth there is no scope of ignoring the restructuring in the RMG sector which is ongoing under the initiatives of retailers, Mustafiz said.
He emphasised on south-south trade and said both the market and product diversification was needed for sustainable export business.
The EPB data showed that during July-February of the FY14 woven garments accounted for $8.22 billion in earnings with a 15.92 per cent growth.
The export earnings from knitwear in the July-January period of the FY14 grew by 17.50 per cent to $7.91 billion.
Leather exports grew by 44.33 per cent to $332.89 million from $230.65 million.
Footwear exports rose by 31.86 per cent to $376.67 million and exports of leather products increased by 49.87 per cent to $138.12 million.
The export earnings from jute and jute goods including raw jute, jute yarn and twine, jute sacks and bags and others, however, posted a negative growth of 20.71 per cent to $534.76 million from $674.40 million.
Frozen foods export grew by 24.23 per cent to $458.30 million from $368.90 million.
The agricultural products including tea, vegetables, tobacco, cut flower and foliage, fruits, spices and dry food fetched $360.57 million with a 9.67 per cent growth.
The export earnings from the specialised textiles totalled at $76.34 million with a 7.37 per cent negative growth while home textiles fetched $500.21 million with a 0.34 per cent negative growth.
The export earnings from engineering products including iron steel, copper wire, stainless steel ware, engineering equipment, electric products and bicycle totalled at $235.40 million with a 5.61 per cent negative growth.