Mohiuddin Rubel, Director, BGMEA
The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) has released the latest export data for July- May in the FY2021-22. During this period the overall RMG export grew by 34.87% to 38.52 billion which was 28.57 billion dollars in July-May, FY 2020-21. The export of knitwear was US$ 20.99 billion, while woven garments was US$ 17.53 billion.
If we look at the export of single month May, the RMG export was 3.15 billion dollar with 23.53% growth compared to May 2021. The growth in May is less than compared to the previous months. Since the overall export growth is showing a continuous positive growth trend which is really inspiring, but there are certain challenges we are facing currently
Due to ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, increased raw material price and the prevailing energy situation are making the situation complicated.
Moreover, During Covid-19, people have to stay at home for a long period. So after the lockdown they used to shop more which is one of the reasons behind this unusual growth in previous months. But currently that scenario has started to come to the normal level.
Also, due to increase the price of materials, countries are facing inflation problem.
What we foresee is that order volume is not like how we have seen in previous few months, growth is slowing down, May export data already shows the decline in growth. We need to work on how we can retain the growth pace in longer term.
Though price is slightly better but not at par with our increased cost of production. We need to focus more on improving efficiency (both process efficiency and workers efficiency), modernize our factories and develop skills.
