The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has, reportedly, underlined that Bangladesh’s export game was much slower than its closest competitors — countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, China and Turkey gained export competitiveness and market share amidst the pandemic, but Bangladesh could not gain any new ground — during the coronavirus pandemic.
This the UNCTAD maintained on 10 February (Wednesday), in the February edition of its Global Trade Update.
Underlining that coronavirus is having a profound impact not only on the global demand but also on the relative competitiveness of countries, the trade update maintained while exports have declined for most countries, some countries have gained in terms of global market share, as their economies were able to better weather the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UNCTAD report underlined that in South Asia, Pakistan showed the highest volatility with 0.67 — the UNCTAD made the comparison in the February edition of its Global Trade Update — while Bangladesh’s export volatility was estimated at 0.52, Vietnam 0.39, followed by Indonesia with 0.03, China 0.39 and Turkey 0.50.
Export volatility, reportedly, tracks export performance across the last six months to identify volatility patterns (a greater score implies higher export vulnerability) even as the data excludes intra-EU trade.
Bangladesh, reportedly, scored 0.35 (tying with India), which left a lot to be desired in terms of the country’s (Bangladesh’s) export performance while Vietnam, on the other hand, scored 0.63, Turkey 0.51, Indonesia 0.48, Pakistan 0.42 and China 0.56.
It may be mentioned here that export performance is a composite indicator (which includes growth rates, performance versus peers, and competitiveness in major and dynamic markets) and greater score implies higher export performance.
