Exports see 19pc growth in October

After major shocks in the production sector of the country in July-August, the exports have started to bounce back rapidly. In October, the country saw 18.5 per cent growth in exports.

Exports rose 16 per cent in the previous month, September, as well. The export growths were around 3 and 5.5 per cent in July and August respectively, the first two months of the current fiscal year.

National Board of Revenue (NBR) data shows that Bangladesh exported goods worth USD 4.13 billion in October, posting an 18.68 per cent (USD 650 million) year-on-year rise.

Bangladesh exported USD 3.82 billion, 4.07 billion and 3.86 billion respectively in July, August and September.

NBR's account of exports of these commodities also includes information on Export Processing Zone’s (EPZ) deemed exports and sample exports. However, the amount is not much.

Several exporters said many exporters could not ship goods on time in July-September due to quota reform movement, political changeover in the student-led uprising and unrest in industrial areas. Many of these stalled goods were shipped last month. Apart from this, exports are increasing as shipment of goods increases ahead of winter and Christmas.

According to the NBR data, goods worth USD 15.88 billion were exported in the first four months of the current fiscal year, which is USD 1.51 billion more than the corresponding period of the previous year. Besides the amount of money exports have also increased in terms of quantity.

The quantity of export was 530 million kilogram in last July, 570 kilogram in August and 580 million kilogram in September. The exports rose to 590 million in October. In total, 2.23 billion kilograms of goods were exported in the first four months of the current fiscal year, which was 2.19 billion in the same period the previous year.

Bangladesh Bank released the balance of payments data on the basis of actual commodity exports last July resulting in disclosure of a huge discrepancy in the exports.

At that time, the central Bank stated that Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) had been publishing export data for a long time, but the income was not coming to the country.

This discrepancy raised questions among local and foreign organisations. An assessment found that the export data was shown inflated. A decision was made to prepare export data based on actual earnings.

Following the revelation of significant discrepancies, EPB paused publishing the data. Last month, the EPB revealed that goods worth USD 11.37 billion were exported from the country in the first three months of the current fiscal year while the amount was USD 10.82 in the corresponding period of the last year.