The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The country's export earnings declined by 11.69 percent during the first two months of the current fiscal comparing with the performance of the corresponding period of the last fiscal, according to a report of Export Promotion Bureau. The country exported products, the report says, worth 2.3 billion dollar against the strategic target of 2.64 billion dollar, short by 23.06 percent.

Exporters blame the prolonged political violence beginning from October 2006, unrest in the RMG sector fuelling from July 2006, congestion of containers in the Chittagong Port and hate-campaign against Bangladesh abroad for sharp fall in exports. The EPB has raised the strategic target to 14.5 billion dollar for the fiscal year of 2007-08 from 12.5 billion dollar though the country was not able to achieve the target. It is because both the woven garments and the knitwear exports fell behind the target.

The BGMEA leaders, despite plummet, appear optimistic about receiving a bulk of fresh orders from the buyers in the months to come. But the real story is that this optimism may suffer a setback due to some clauses incorporated in the proposed US garment bill. From a story published in this paper on Wednesday, it appears that LDC countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia will face difficulties in getting free entry to the US market. In view of this, the BGMEA president has urged the government and other stakeholders to treat the matter with utmost care in order to get free access in the US market. However, if all the efforts to persuade the US lawmakers from passing the said bill fail, the RMG exports to the USA will be seriously jeopardized. It is noticeable that the USA alone imports 28 percent of garment products from Bangladesh.

Export earnings from woven garments declined by 16.59 percent because of exports worth 762.22 m $ products in July-August period while the knitwear earnings were 791.79 million dollar against the strategic target of 995.72 million dollar. Not only the RMG sector; jute goods, leather, pharmaceuticals, handicrafts, home textile and tobacco also marked sharp decline though vegetables, raw jute and frozen goods performed well during this period.

Economic development of a country largely relates to political stability, high-quality planning and good bilateral relationship. Since the beginnings of the nineties, frequent shutdown call and siege program damaged the country's image abroad. Unless political stability is established in Bangladesh and politics of hartal and siege are abandoned, economic development is really hard to achieve.