DHAKA, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Amid slump in ready-made garment (RMG) demand, Bangladesh's export income in the first four months of the current fiscal year (July 2019-June 2020) fell 6.82 percent year on year to nearly 13 billion U.S. dollars, an official said Tuesday.
The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) official told Xinhua that Bangladesh fetched a total of 12,721.22 million U.S. dollars from exports during July-October compared to 13,651.78 million U.S. dollars in the same period a year earlier.
Bangladesh shipped goods worth 3.07 billion U.S. dollars in October, the 4th month of the current fiscal year, which was about 17.19 percent lower than the same month a year ago, said the official who preferred to be unnamed.
Sluggish export performance in the first four months of the fiscal year has been attributed to poor demand for the country's ready-made garments in key global markets.
Bangladesh set its export target for the whole 2019-20 fiscal year at 45.50 billion U.S. dollars, including about 38.20 billion U.S. dollars from RMG products, the EPB data showed. In the July-October period, Bangladesh earned 10.58 billion U.S. dollars from garment exports with knitted items such as T-shirts growing 5.73 percent and woven items such as jeans falling 7.67 percent.
During the period, according to the official, knitwear garment export stood at 5.54 billion dollars while income from woven garments reached 5.04 billion U.S. dollars.
Bangladesh's export income in the past 2018-19 (July 2018-June 2019) reached 40.54 billion U.S. dollars.
