Bangladesh proposes $18.7 bln export target in 2010-11 fiscal

Despite failing to achieve expected export earnings in the last 2009-10 fiscal year (July 2009 to June 2010), the Bangladeshi Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) has proposed a 18.7 billion U.S. dollars target for exports in the current fiscal (July 2010 to June 2011), which would be a more than 15 percent increase over last year's actual earnings.

Export earnings for the 2009-10 fiscal was 16.2 billion U.S. dollars against a target of 17.6 billion U.S. dollars. That represented a 4 percent increase over the 2008-09 fiscal, even though it fell around 8 percent short of the target, private news agency UNB reported on Sunday.

Economists say exports, especially the export of knitwear and woven garments could not reach the target in the last fiscal due to the effect of the global economic meltdown, labor unrest in the readymade garment (RMG) sector, and the crippling energy and power crisis.

A over 10 percent increase in earnings for the highest export earning RMG sector (combining knitwear and woven garments), which contributed about 77.1 percent of the total export income of Bangladesh in 2009-10 fiscal year, has been proposed, even though it could not achieve its target in 2009-10 fiscal, said an EPB high official.

The target for knitwear has been proposed at 7.3 billion U.S. dollars, which would be a 14 percent increase on last year's performance (6.4 billion U.S. dollars) while the target for the woven garments sector has been proposed at 6.7 billion U.S. dollars, around 700 million U.S. dollars more than it earned last year.
(Source:xinhua)