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The government has set an export target of US$ 12.50 billion for the current fiscal 2006-07 accounting for 18.75 per cent increase from last year's total export earnings.
The country's total export earnings in the fiscal 2005-06 was $10.526 billion against the target of $10.159 billion.
The export earnings target for the current fiscal was fixed at a meeting Thursday at the conference room of the Commerce Ministry with the Minister, Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, in the chair.
Commerce Secretary, Feroz Ahmed, Vice-Chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), Mir Shahabuddin Mohammad, President of BKMEA Fazlul Hoque, representatives form different trade bodies and concerned ministries were present on the occasion.
According to sector-wise target, the knitwear sub-sector has been placed on the top of the list with an estimated earning of $4872 million in the current year. The target is 35.33 per cent higher than that of last fiscal and 27.64 per cent more in terms of actual earnings.
The woven sub-sector has been targeted as the second largest export earnings sector in the current fiscal. The target has been fixed at $4650 million this year. Last year export earnings from this sector was $4083 million against the target of $3950 million.
With a view to diversifying from traditional export products, the Commerce Ministry Thursday lower the export earnings target of the main eight exportable items -- woven, knitwear, jute goods, leather, frozen foods, home textile, chemical products and raw jute -- at 88.94 per cent in the current fiscal against that of 90.23 per cent last year.
The meeting also set the country-wise export earnings targets and the US market has been placed on the top of the list, followed by Germany, UK, French, Italy, Canada, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, India, Sweden, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Turkey.
The meeting decided that the Bangladeshi foreign missions, which have failed to achieve export earnings target last fiscal, would be cautioned and asked to fulfill the target in the current year. At present, 44 foreign missions are working abroad of which 19 have commercial wings.
The representatives from different trade bodies Thursday expressed their dissatisfaction over the treatment of the Bangladeshi exporters by foreign mission personnel posted abroad. The businessmen alleged that they hardly receive any cooperation from the foreign missions.
After the meeting, Commerce Minister Hafiz Uddin Ahmed told reporters that if they could utilise the existing duty-free facilities to EU, Canada, Australia, Norway and New Zealand markets, the export earnings target would be achieved. He also sought help of the businessmen to achieve the target.
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