Bangladesh's foreign trade with China is heavily imbalanced as the country's export to the East-Asian nation has declined in recent years, official data shows.
Bangladesh exported goods worth only US$715.379 million to China in the last fiscal year (FY) 2023-24 while it imported products worth $16.64 billion in the same period, Bangladesh Bank (BB) and Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data showed.
Bangladesh's export has declined in recent years compared to 7-8 years ago in FY2016 and FY2017 period.
Export of Bangladeshi products almost touched one-billion-USD-mark in FY2017 which is now hovering at a range of $600 million to $700 million trajectory.
According to the EPB, Bangladesh made a shipment of $950 million worth of goods in FY2017 which started to decline in the subsequent fiscal years.
In the last FY 2024, foreign exchange earnings from the export to China showed a hope as Bangladesh made shipment of goods worth $715.379 million.
But the earning from the shipment of products to Chinese market was recorded at $461.504 million during first eight months (July-February) of the current FY2025 which has so far showed a poor trend, the EPB data showed.
Meanwhile, the huge trade imbalance has widened especially since the FY2021 as import from the East-Asian nation has been surging year-on-year against the declining trend of export, the statistics showed.
In FY2020, the trade gap with China was $14.49 billion as Bangladesh exported goods worth $600 million while import volume was $15.10 billion, BB and EPB data showed.
But in the subsequent FY2021, the trade imbalance had started to widen as Bangladesh made a shipment of $680.66 million worth of products against its import of $23.80 billion from the world's second largest economy, the government statistics showed.
According to BB and EPB, Bangladesh's trade gap (export-import) has been heavily on the negative trajectory as it was recorded at $26.11 billion in the FY2022 and $22.42 billion in FY2023.
In the last FY2024, the trade imbalance narrowed down to some extent as the Bangladesh government imposed restriction on import of products especially the luxurious ones due to shortage of foreign exchange reserve.
Economists say China itself manufactures enough products for its local demand which is one of the reasons for lower export-base of Bangladesh.
Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Research Director Dr KG Moazzem told the FE that since China has capacity to supply adequate products to its own market and Bangladesh's products are also almost same like that country, so it (Bangladesh) cannot enter that market.
"Although China has given zero-duty access facility under the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), Bangladesh cannot get adequate access. As per APTA deal, the exporting country will have to add value of 35 per cent with their manufacture products for getting the zero-duty facility," he said.
Under the APTA, Beijing has recently given zero-duty access to Bangladeshi products.
Besides, China's close neighbours like Vietnam and Thailand are ahead of Bangladesh in terms of lead time where Bangladesh needs to export through Singapore port which takes more time than those ASEAN countries, Dr Moazzem said.
He suggested that Bangladesh government should join ASEAN and go for bilateral agreement with China for enhancing the country's export.
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