The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The United States of America alone imported 28.26 percent, 3441.02 million dollar, of the Bangladeshi products during the fiscal 2006-07, according to a statistics of Export Promotion Bureau released recently. Bangladesh exported 12,177.86 million dollar products against the strategic target of 12,500 m $, slightly short of target, but over the performance of the fiscal 2005-06, marking a 15.69 percent growth.

The USA mainly imported oven garments (2284.84 m $), knitwear (762.39 m $), frozen shrimp (175.32 m $), cap (57.29 m $) and home textile (14.86 m $), in percentage 49.06 pc, 17.86 pc and 38.36 pc as to the first three products. The export to the USA increased by 13.20 percent during the fiscal 2006-07 over the performance of the previous fiscal, the report added.

In importing Bangladeshi products, Germany took the second spot with 1955.38 m $ (16.06 pc). Germany imported knitwear, 24.23 pc, oven garments, 16.32 pc, and frozen shrimp, 4.44 pc. Export to the said country went up by 10.32 percent. The United Kingdom is the third largest importer with 1193.95 m $ (9.64 pc). The UK imported 404.82 m $ oven garments, 489.40 m $ knitwear, 109.13 m $ home textile, 47.37 m $ frozen fish and 31.08 m $ bi-cycle. The RMG export to the UK increased by 18.01 percent.

Exports to France amounted to 731.76 m $, to Italy 515.66 m $, to Holland 459.01 m $ and to Belgium 435.82 m $ respectively. The common items were knitwear, oven garments and frozen shrimp.

Iran contributed just 0.41 percent only--jute yarn, twin and hessian being the items. Japan and Singapore imported 1.21 and 0.75 percent of the Bangladeshi products while exports to India and Pakistan amounted to 289.42 m $ and 61.06 m $ respectively. The chief exporting items to India were chemical fertilisers, raw jute and frozen fish while to Pakistan were raw jute and tea.

In contrast, China imported only 92.99 m $ products although the said East Asian country is the highest exporter to Bangladesh. The reasons are that China imported only raw jute and leather.

It reveals from the statistics that three products i.e. woven garments, knitwear and frozen shrimp dominated the export performance contributing 38.25 pc, 37.39 pc and 4.23 pc respectively. In this backdrop, it is must to diversify the exporting items to check landslide if occurs in future for any reason whatsoever.