New ways being explored to widen export basket

FE Report | Published: August 14, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

The government is set to prepare a list of traditional and non-traditional export items aiming to diversify the export basket, officials said.
The move has been taken with a view to increasing the country's export items and also providing government facility or cash incentive or subsidy for the items as per their contribution to the economy, they said.
Earlier, Private Sector Development Policy Co-Ordination Committee had put emphasis on making the list of traditional and non-traditional export items. In this connection, two meetings have been held, which were participated by the private and public representatives.
The first meeting decided to fix the standards of country's traditional and non-traditional export items. Later, it took decision to make the list of those items.
But the initiative could not make any visible progress due to complication. For this, it is taking more time to start listing of traditional and non-traditional export items.
Currently, jute and jute goods, leather and tea etc are considered the country's traditional export items.
There are some 729 export items in the country that are exported to 192 international markets.
India and Pakistan have fixed the standard of their traditional and non-traditional export items, industry insiders said, stressing the need for following the neighbouring countries to fix such standards of export goods, they said.
"The existing standard for the country's traditional export items are unreliable. We will have to consider fixing the standard of the current export items according to the rate of value addition and contribution to the country's economy and uniqueness etc," an official of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) told the FE on Wednesday.
The government is now focusing on other areas to promote non-traditional goods. As part of its effort, the EPB, in collaboration with the relevant ministries, has been working on bringing some non-traditional export items along with the traditional products under an umbrella, he added.
Bangladesh has a lot of potential for exporting a number of other non-traditional items across the globe, apart from apparel exports, he mentioned.
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