Published in New Age on Tuesday, 7 April 2015.
Export earnings inch up by 2.98pc in July-March
Staff Correspondent
The country’s export earnings in July-March period of the financial year 2014-15 increased by 2.98 per cent to $22.9 billion compared with the corresponding period of the FY14 when the exports totalled $22.24 billion.
The earnings in July-March period fell 5 per cent short of its target set for the first nine months of the fiscal year, Export promotion Bureau officials said.
According to the EPB data to be released today, the export earnings in March increased by 7.43 per cent to $2.59 billion against 2.41 billion in the same period of the FY14.
Export earnings from knitwear in the first nine months of the FY15 increased to $9.05 billion with 2.69 per cent rise against $8.83 billion in the same period of the FY14 while the earnings from woven garments increased by 3.64 per cent to $9.55 billion in the July-March period against $9.22 billion in the corresponding period of the FY14.
‘Amid political turmoil the January-March export earnings growth in the country’s readymade garment sector is encouraging, although the growth is lower than expected,’ Khondaker Golam Moazzem, additional research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, told New Age on Monday.
He said it would not be possible to achieve the export growth target for the financial year, if the volume of earnings does not increase more in the coming months.
‘It is a matter of hope that the garment export growth is enjoying an upward trend in the recent months,’ Moazzem said.
According to the EPB officials, earnings from agricultural products in the first nine months of the FY15 increased by 8 per cent while the export of jute and jute goods grew by 6.62 per cent in the period.
Earnings from leather products grew by 7 per cent and footwear export increased by 23.40 per cent while export earnings from frozen foods declined by 6.72 per cent in July-March period of the FY15.