March 14, 2011

Shrimp boosts Bangladesh's Jul-Nov exports to US

Bangladesh's US export earnings registered a 37.31% growth in the first five months (July-November) of the current fiscal, mostly due to buoyant performance of local products including frozen shrimp.

Exports to the US totalled US$1,956.38 million in the first five months of fiscal 2010-11 compared to US$1,424.84 million during the corresponding period of the last fiscal (2009-10). The amount was 23.64% of the total export earnings in the July-November period.

According recent statistics provided by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), the export of Ready Made Garment (RMG) items to the US including knitwear amounted to US$1,785.67 million in July-November of current fiscal compared to US$1,331.79 million during the corresponding period of last fiscal. The RMG items including knitwear witnessed 34.08% growth in the US market.

The major exports to the US market during the period were woven garment (US$1282.82 million), knitwear (US$502.85 million), frozen shrimp (US$44.36 million), cap (US$16.19 million) and home textiles (US$37.26 million).

During the July-November period, around 44.47% of the country's total woven garment exports entered the US market, followed by knitwear 14.23% and frozen shrimp 20.54%.

Bangladeshi export earnings from the US in the 2009-10 fiscal totalled US$3.14 billion, a 7.74% fall over US$3.4 billion in 2008-09, mostly because of the global economic recession.

Exports of RMG including knitwear witnessed a sharp fall of over 6% in the last fiscal, fetching US$2.9 billion as against US$3.1 billion in 2008-09.

The last fiscal (2009-10) marked the end of an up-and-down decade for Bangladesh exports to the US. From a high of US$2.5 billion during the 2000-01 fiscal, exports had fallen below US$2 billion by 2003-04.

Exports rose steadily to cross the US$3 billion mark in 2005-06, and peaked at nearly US$3.6 billion during the 2007-08 fiscal.