Move to revamp foreign missions to boost export

The government is going to find ways and means on how to boost export earnings by its missions abroad, officials said.
They said necessary initiatives will also be taken to expedite the trade promotion activities and remove the bottlenecks of its missions abroad.
In this connection, a meeting of the policy formulating committee will be held this week, to be presided over by Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, also the convener of the committee.
Representatives from the ministries of finance, foreign affairs, agriculture, industries, expatriates' welfare and overseas employment and National Board of Revenue  (NBR), the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Bangladesh Bank (BB) and Business Promotion Council (BPC) will attend the meeting. Senior officials dealing with export and import trade will also be present.
"The meeting is intended to identify the problems of missions abroad and come up with solutions so that export earnings are boosted," a senior official of the MoC said.
The government aims to nearly double exports to over US$ 50 billion by 2018. For this, the government will take all kinds of efforts to make the step a success, he said.
"We want to remain on the frontline so far doing business is concerned by providing more support for country's businesses to export their goods and services," a source concerned said.
The export earnings picture of most of the missions abroad is unsatisfactory. Though some missions achieve the targets, it is important to strengthen foreign missions that need corrective and pragmatic measures to help secure more export orders, sources concerned said.
Export earnings for July-April of fiscal year (FY) 2014-2015 was US$ 25303.25 million, which is 2.63 per cent higher than the corresponding period of the previous year and 5.71 per cent lower than the strategic target of US$ 26835.56 million, according to the export promotion Bureau (EPB).
Some 20 Missions among 53 Bangladesh Mission abroad achieved their export target while 33 Missions could not achieve the target set.
Currently, Bangladesh has 19 commercial wings in 17 countries, with two each in the US and India. The commercial wing in Iran would be shut down as that country is facing difficulties in commerce and trade due to the sanction imposed by the USA, according to the MoC.
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