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Exports of woven garments, one of the major foreign exchange earners, performed poorly during the first two months of the current fiscal and manufacturers fear further drop in sales as orders from buyers are declining this year.
Woven garments fetched US $ 701 million, down by US $ 71 million, during July-August period this year. Total merchandise exports, however, increased marginally during the period and fetched a total of US $ 848 million, official sources said.
"Yes, the woven garment export has registered a negative growth… and this is our main concern at this stage," said Mir Shahabuddin, vice-chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau.
Shahabuddin said he would sit with the exporters to investigate what went wrong with the woven garment exports. The industrialists, however, insisted that the government knew that woven garments would not earn much.
"We demanded for a central bonded warehouse facility to cut our production cost and reduce shipment time, and asked for regional fabrics procurement…" said Anowarul Alam Chowdhury Parvez, a vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
He said Bangladesh still needs much longer time to manufacture and ship woven garments as local textile mills could supply only 25 per cent of the total fabrics demand and much of the fabrics come from abroad.
Parvez claimed that prices of woven garments had also declined in the international market and its growth fell.
The BGMEA leader said orders have gone down significantly and that manufacturers were receiving little enquiries about their January-March orders.
Frozen shrimp also experienced a slight negative growth and exporters said they had deliberately exported less to the Europe markets as a precaution to avoid a ban because of the presence of a growth agent in the consignments. European Union (EU) have warned that Bangladeshi shrimp contains Nitrofuran and might face a ban if the problem is not addressed. A health team will visit Bangladesh soon from the EU to investigate the Nitrofuran contamination.
"Bangladesh does not have equipment to detect Nitrofuran," said Ferdous Alam, a leading shrimp exporter. He said two such machines have remained idle for years as officials do not know how to operate some functions.
Knitwear such as sweaters and cardigans registered a 19 per cent growth during July-August period. It has fetched US $ 662 million, up by almost US $ 100 million, in the first two months of the financial year 2005-06.
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