High-powered body to review export status next week

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Naim-Ul-Karim
A high-powered government committee meets next week to review the status of exports in the post-SIDR period and evaluate the performances of the commercial wings abroad.
"We will discuss the entire gamut of the country's exports which already showed a sluggish trend in the first quarter of the current fiscal," a senior official of the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) said.
Bangladesh's earning from merchandise exports fell short of target by 17.65 per cent during the first quarter of the current fiscal.
The country exported products worth $3077.09 million during the July-September (Q1) period of fiscal 2007-08 against the target of $3736 million. The export earning in the first quarter of the last fiscal was recorded $3251.84 million.
Sources said such a significant fall in the Q1earnings has been attributed to poor export performances of the main growth sectors of the country, namely, woven garments and knitwear.
The country's export earning is unlikely to gain much in this quarter as one of the major growth sector-frozen foods-- has been severely affected by the hurricane SIDR, sources feared.
They said businessmen have already claimed a loss of over Tk 4.0 billion in the country's frozen foods sector due to the recent cyclone SIDR that hit the country's southwestern coastline, devastating most of the shrimp farms.
They said threats of dropping Bangladesh from the list of beneficiaries of the Generalised System of Preference (GSP) on the ground of violation of labour rights and other issues are also causes of concern.
Against this backdrop, sources said it has become urgent to take timely measures to safeguard the main growth sectors.
Besides, they said the meeting is expected to discuss how the commercial wings abroad could play a more effective role in boosting export earnings.
"The functioning of the commercial wings will be evaluated in the meeting based on their performance in the first quarter and if needed we will make recommendations to bring changes in the strategically important wings to help augment export earnings," an official of the MoC said.
When asked, he said there are 16 commercial wings in the country's foreign missions with the exception of Geneva, Kolkata and Los Angeles.