Bangladesh gained two new billion-dollar export markets—India and Poland—in fiscal 2018-19 in addition to the existing nine. Export earnings from the two nations topped $1 bn in the first 10 months of the current fiscal, with the figure for India being $1.07 bn, 52.98 per cent higher from $701.56 mn in the same period of the previous fiscal. Bangladesh’s financial year ends on June 30.
Export earnings from Poland in the same period grew 29.80 per cent to $1.02 bn from $787.91mn in the last fiscal, a report citing data from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB). Bangladesh’s export to India in the 2017-18 fetched $873.27 mn while the earnings from Poland stood at $965.22 mn, EPB data show.
The country’s other billion-dollar export markets are the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan. Bangladesh’s exports to Belgium had also reached the billion-dollar mark in the fiscal 2015-16, but later as Bangladesh’s export growth to that country went down, it slipped from the position. Some of Bangladesh’s apparel products go to Germany and Russia via Poland.
EPB data show the export earnings from the United States, the largest export market for Bangladesh, in the July-April period of 2018-19 grew by 16.17 per cent to $5.71 bn from $4.92 bn in the same period in the previous fiscal. The country’s exports to Germany, the second largest destination for its goods, grew by 7.10 per cent to $5.26 bn in the same period compared to $4.91 bn in that period of the previous fiscal. The income from the exports to the United Kingdom, the third largest export market for Bangladesh, grew by 3.77 per cent to $3.50 bn in the period.
