BGCCI president tells FE

Sonia H Moni The export from Bangladesh to Germany could reach 3.5 billion euro by the end of this year from 2.4 billion euro last year, the Bangladesh German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BGCCI) president has said. "The growth of export from Bangladesh is expected to go up by 60 per cent at the end of this year which is worth 3.5 billion euro," BGCCI president Saiful Islam told the FE Saturday on the closing day of the German Trade Show. He said, the bilateral trade between Germany and Bangladesh has also increased by 50 per cent in 2010 where Bangladesh has had a trade growth of 52 per cent and Germany grabbed 36 per cent growth. "Germany is a potential export destination of Bangladeshi goods. German trade barrier is less than any other country in the globe. The three barriers are cultural, language and understanding. It could be reduced holding this sort of trade shows which will help to increase connectivity and confidence." He said, German businesses are interested in Bangladesh ready made garments, footwear, home textile, pharmaceutical, chemical and shipbuilding industries. Among the 100 stalls of the trade show 60 were set up by Germany and other foreign countries and rest 40 by local industries. "This trade show will help local goods to enter into the market of Germany as we are exporting ladies, gents and kids footwear to Italy, Japan and France for last ten year," said AKM Afzalur Rahman, managing director of Land Mark Footwear Ltd, a local company. He said, "Though we were not selling our products we got good response from the visitors of the fair. We are an entirely export oriented company and we get good response in the trade show. To enter into a new market trade shows help a lot." Mr Rahman said: "In this fair we have got a number of sample orders from our buyers and we are hopeful that we will get orders from them in future." Besides, footwear, bags the visitors showed interest in the solar charger lights and home solar system and seeds. Bestway Powertech Ltd has sold solar charger lights worth Tk 100,000 which includes different types of charger lights as the visitors showed a lot of interest in it, said its senior executive for sales and marketing Md Forhadul Pervez. He said: "We have also sold seven solar home system capacity ranges from one kilowatt to 2.5 killowatt. We are quite satisfied with the response." Lal Teer Seed Limited marketing executive officer Ruhul Amin said, "Before coming to the trade show we have thought that we won't got response from the visitors. But we were wrong. We got tremendous response." He added: "We came here with 126 high breed variety of vegetable. Each of the items had around 50 packets but before the evening of the closing day of the trade show only a few packets were unsold. We sold seeds worth Tk 20,000. Price of each packet was Tk 10 to 20.