The recent labour unrest, attributed to minimum wage issues, had a disruptive impact on the garment industry and export in the final week of October, leading to a decline in apparel exports during that month.
According to export data, RMG exports decreased by 13.93 per cent in October 2023, dropping from US $ 3.68 billion to US $ 3.17 billion.
This translates to a monthly decrease of US $ 513 million.
However, the performance for July-October indicates that the country’s RMG exports reached US $ 14.78 billion during that period, showing a 5.59 per cent year-over-year growth compared to US $ 13.95 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year (2022-23).
Despite this growth in RMG exports, the overall export scenario faced challenges.
In October 2023, overall exports declined by 13.64 per cent compared to October 2022.
Additionally, when compared to the strategic export target for October 2023, the actual export performance fell below by 28.35 per cent.
