Oct export earnings may miss target

FT ONLINE

The country's off-docks handled a lower number of outbound containers in October.

This indicates that the export earnings might have missed the target set for the month.

The Chattogram-based 18 inland container depots (ICDs) handled nearly 42,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of export containers last month, compared to 45,640 TEUs in the same month last year, said officials.

"From mid-October, we're receiving a poor number of outbound containers," secretary of the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association (BICDA) Ruhul Amin (Biplob) said.

"The trend has been continuing since August. We do not see any possibility of attaining export growth this year."

Mr. Biplob said the ICDs handled a total of 52,201 TEUs of export containers in August 2018, and 48,960 TEUs in September 2018. On the other hand, in August and September, they handled 51,568 TEUs and 48,768 TEUs of outbound containers respectively.

He also expressed the fear that the downward trend in export may continue until January.

The ICDs handle around 91 percent of outbound containers, while the rest 9.0 percent are brought to the port directly.

Usually, the export cargoes are taken to the ICDs first by truck and covered vans, where goods are stuffed in containers. Later, those are boarded to the feeder vessels for taking to mother vessels, waiting in Singapore, Colombo or Port Klang.

First vice-president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) Mohammad Hatem also feared fall export in October.

"The trend shows a possible negative growth," he said adding, if even the export was the same in volume, it will definitely fall in value.

Elaborating its reasons Mr. Hatem said the prices of apparel products fell by nearly 8.0 percent in recent months.

"The first reason is we have lost our competitiveness in the meantime. The Bangladesh taka should have depreciated against the US dollar much ago."

He said India, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia are now the major competitors of Bangladesh in the apparel world. These countries earlier devalued their currencies to remain competitive.

Citing an example, Mr. Hatem said Pakistani rupee is now traded at 155.30 against each USD. Pakistani manufacturers can easily offer prices by five to 10 cents lower compared to their Bangladeshi counterparts to attract buyers.

As a result, Bangladeshi garment makers are nowadays getting less order than the competitors, resulting in a fall in the country's export earnings.

Mr. Hatem also said the global demand for attires fell significantly in recent months.

In the last fiscal year (FY), 2018-19, the apparel export saw an unexpected 11.50 percent growth. But, those goods remained unsold, and so, the order fell this year, he added.

Statistics show that after attaining an 8.55 percent gain in this July, compared to the same month of last FY, export earnings fell by 11.49 percent in August and 7.3 percent in September.

In the July-September quarter (Q1) of the current fiscal, export earnings were 3.0 percent lower over the corresponding period of last fiscal.