Exports set a new record in July

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Naim-Ul-Karim
The country's exports started the financial year with a bang posting a fresh all time monthly record, spurred by impressive show by knitwear and woven garments, officials said Sunday.
They said the country shipped goods worth around US$1.54 billion in July with garments belying market expectations that financial market meltdown in the United States and European Union-- Bangladesh's major markets-- would drag down exports.
The shipments are nearly 35 per cent more than the figures of last July and at least $73 million more than that of June, the previous highest exports recorded in a month since the country's independence.
"Our export in July this year is all time high," vice chairman of Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) Shahab Ullah told the FE, quoting official data.
He said exports in the first quarter of the current fiscal would set new record as all indicators show sign of "impressive growth" of major export items, such as woven and knitwear garments, frozen food and footwear.
The country's exports fell by 5.37 per cent in the July-September quarter last year as garment exports nose-dived due to protracted impact of the emergency and labour unrest in the garment factories.
Garment exports make up more than three-fourths of the country's annual exports since the beginning of this decade. And any fall in their performance cause slide in overall national exports.
But shipments staged a comeback in the last nine months as top global garment buyers increased their orders to Bangladeshi, finding its products cheapest in the world.
Agri products, footwear and frozen food have also beat expectations.
The EPB chief said they would make the export data public after the government set the target for the current fiscal year.
"We hope that the export target for 2008-9 fiscal year could be set by end of September," he said.
The country exported goods worth $14.11 billion against an ambitious target of $14.50 billion --- more than 19 per cent more than the shipments of the 2006-7 --- in the last fiscal year concluded in June.
The EPB said knitwear and woven garments grew more than 16 per cent to $10.7 billions, with knitted items such as T-shirts growing 21.50 per cent and woven items such as jeans 11 per cent.
Together with textile fabrics, home textile such as bed-sheets and terry towel, the country's total exports in garment items crossed more than $11 billions in the last fiscal.