Country's farmers need to know what varieties of crops or vegetables they should cultivate in order to get maximum return through export of their produces. Mostly they remain in the dark over the exact demands for their produces abroad.
Very recently, a Bangladeshi businessman living in Malaysia informed this scribe through e-mail about the ignorance of the local Bangladeshi exporters in selecting right kinds of items for exports. Citing an example, he said if Bangladeshi exporters cultivate US variety of potato seeds whose skin colour is pink, they would get double the rate than that of the prices of diamond-colour variety (Holland) of potato that the local farmers generally produce.
The US variety of potato, he noted, sells at 5.0 ringit per kilogramme (kg) in Malaysia and such a variety is widely cultivated in Indonesia and China. As such, Bangladeshi farmers should understand the dynamics of export potential of the goods and crops they produce. This will help them in getting fair prices for their items.
A study, however, found that speedy export of a consignment might save over 20,000 tonnes of potato from total damage, as there is no space available in most of the cold storages in Bangladesh. As such, steps must be taken in right earnest to save the poor potato farmers from perennial losses.
The passionate appeal from a patriotic local businessman living abroad merits consideration by the government and should also be an eye-opener for the farmers. The government did take up Export Diversification Project in 1999 with financial support of the World Bank. The pious aim of the project was to help integrate Bangladesh in the global economy through promotion and diversification of exportable. Sadly enough, the project could not perform satisfactorily and was subsequently abandoned.
In fact, prolonged efforts by the government to help diversify both the country's products and market base did fail to yield any tangible outcome. So many years after its independence, the country's export earnings are still dependent largely on limited items and countries.
The country is promoting reportedly six exportable items in four markets in its external trade over the years, because of its unsuccessful efforts to effectively implement the plans for diversification of its export basket.
Although there is a good prospect of a jump in the export trade under the global trading regime, a number of its quality products are almost unknown to the outside world because of poor product campaign, coupled with lack of market diversification.
The government had also provided cash subsidy for a number of products and introduced incentives for encouraging exports to new markets. But again, there was hardly any notable outcome. Neither the number of exportable items nor the export destinations could see the much-needed expansion.
As for potato, some private entrepreneurs are exporting the item in small quantities to the Middle East (ME), Malaysia and some European Union (EU) countries. There are otherwise fairly big markets for potato in the ME, UK, USA, South Korea and Malaysia. Successive governments did never give adequate attention to the needs for diversification of the exportable items in the past. For that matter, the country could not tap properly its export potential.
Previous steps taken by the many governments -- either strategic or operational -- were not sufficient to diversify both products and markets. Now the government needs to provide policy support to the non-readymade garments (RMG) products. Those who are small suppliers need networking, match-making, information sharing to popularise their products to the world.
Added to this, aggressive government-to-government negotiations are important for removing or reducing the tariff barriers, especially in the non-traditional markets that need non-traditional products. Furthermore, there is a strong need to organise more trade fairs and exchanges of missions to various destinations.
However, there are some problems on way to the expansion of exports abroad. Among them, infrastructural constraints are perhaps the singlemost important bottleneck to expansion of export and investment-augmenting activities in Bangladesh. Problems continue to remain, in spite of the government's effort to streamline a number of stumbling blocks.
Inadequate infrastructural facilities do adversely affect enterprises that are involved in export activities. It hampers production activities, delays movements of goods and passengers leading to delays in the delivery of goods. Delays in delivery may result in the cancellation of the contracts and the loss of markets forever. The shortage of energy supply is a leading infrastructural constraint.
On the other hand, official rules and regulations, pertaining to exports, are still complicated. Firms engaged in export business have to appoint officers for sorting out matters with the government and agencies.
Inadequate investments are also a problem related to diversification of export basket. Bangladesh has been following a private sector-led growth strategy since 1980s. Public sector investment has come down but private sector investment is yet to pick up. This has led to low level of capital formation in recent years. Inflow of foreign capital is also sluggish.
Export opportunities are wide open in the comparatively new markets. But for lack of proper knowledge and efforts, both from the local businesses and the government, those markets have so far remained unexplored. Russia, many African countries and some other ones showed their interest in importing items like apparel and leather products as well as jute goods from Bangladesh.
Under the given circumstances, the government should come forward with a pro-active plan of action to help enhance the quality of the local products and explore the untapped markets across the world. Such a plan needs to aim at exploring non-traditional markets, while putting emphasis on all items which have promising export potential.
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Selecting right kind of items for export
Shahiduzzaman Khan | Published: April 16, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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