At a time when the Bangladesh garment industry is working hard towards achieving the US$50 billion export target by 2021 to commemorate the country’s 50th of independence anniversary, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed has forecast that Bangladesh’s export earnings would reach US$60 billion by then. He also called upon the entrepreneurs of the private sectors to play more proactive role to further accelerate the country’s economic growth and lift its economic status.
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This, he said, while opening the 24th month-long “Chittagong International Trade Fair-2016” (CITF-2016) recently.
“… we want to transform Bangladesh from a labour-reliant economy to a digital one,” Ahmed said, informing further that Bangladesh’s current annual export stood at over US$31 billion and was increasing at a whopping rate of 12.5 per cent per annum.
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It may be mentioned here that riding high on the increased growth of the readymade garments (RMG) sector, Bangladesh’s export earnings in the July-February period of the financial year of 2015-16 rose by 8.92 per cent, totalling US$ $22.12 billion as against export earnings of US$ 20.03 billion in the same period of the FY 2014-15.
According to the provisional data of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), woven sector’s contribution in the total US$ $22.12 billion earnings in the July-Feb period was US $9.48 billion, while the knitwear sector accounted for US $8.64 billion. The EPB’s provisional data further stated that the earnings in February of FY16 grew by 13.60 per cent to US $ 2.85 billion from that of US$ 2.51 billion in the same month of FY15, underlining that the single-month earnings surpassed the Government-set target of Us $2.7 billion by 4.90 per cent.
Commenting on the garment sector’s contribution towards this growth, Vice-President of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) Mahmud Hassan Khan Babu reportedly told a daily newspaper that “the growth was encouraging” and that the sector would perform better in the coming months as the global demand was on the rise and the factories took safety measures”.
