New steps to boost exports

Badrul Ahsan | Published: July 25, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

The government has taken a set of initiatives to boost export in view of its poor growth in the last fiscal.
A high official of commerce ministry said the initiatives included setting of country-wise export targets for the Bangladeshi missions abroad instead of the existing mission-wise targets, and increased foreign trips by business delegations.
Besides, attending increased numbers of international trade fairs abroad, signing preferential trade agreements (PTA) with a number of countries and finding out problems and prospects of local exporters and their remedies are also among the initiatives.
"We have initiated the move to make our export earnings steady by implementing some decisions," vice-chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) Suvashis Bose told the FE.Â Â
"Although volume of our export increased significantly in the last financial year (FY), the weaker local currency against the euro, pound and some other foreign currencies has brought down our achievement," he added.
He holds the hope that after implementation of the decisions, there would be a steady growth in export earnings even in any adverse situation.
Mr Bose also said, "We're also in talk with a number of countries to sign PTA, after which, we believe, export will be boosted."
A director of the EPB, preferring anonymity, also said setting the country-specific export targets for the missions abroad would definitely help usher in a new era of business for local exporters.
"Many Bangladeshi missions abroad were assigned for creating market for local products in a number of countries, but they were assigned to a mission-wise export target. For this reason, at the end of the year, we see that mission-wise targets were fulfilled but exports to many of the countries under the missions were negligible," he added.
"Achievement of the missions would be added to the annual confidential report (ACR), so the people working in the missions would be active to fulfil their new target. Thus a new era of business would open up," he said.
Meanwhile, president of the Exporters Association of Bangladesh (EAB) Abdus Salam Murshedy said the authority should concentrate on broadening regional market along with other initiatives.
"Our export markets are cramped to some selected countries whereas there are some other opportunities around us which need to be discovered," he said.
He named China, India and some other regional markets as very potential for local exports.
"If the government can ensure an easy access of our products to these destinations, then the regional markets have the potential to emerge as another Europe or the USA," he said on an upbeat note about the prospect of intra-regional trade.
Appreciating the recent initiatives, the EAB president urged the government to concentrate more on the regional markets.
However, the country posted around 3.35 per cent export growth in the last FY -- far lower in terms of income in many years. The export earnings in the fiscal year 2014-15 amounted to US$30.187 billion against the set target of $31.198 billion. Â
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