In the January-September 2023 period, Bangladesh’s RMG export reached US$ 35.61 billion compared to the US$ 32.99 billion export in the corresponding period of 2022, showing 7.96pc year over year growth.
Notably, the European Union (EU) played a significant role in this overall growth, being Bangladesh's largest RMG export destination.
Bangladesh’s export to Europe increased by 6.40%, to US$ 17.52 billion during January-September 2023, from US$ 16.47 billion during the same period a year earlier. Germany, the major market of the EU, has been showing continuous decline during the past few months and during the first nine months of 2023, our export to Germany has declined by 12.58% compared to the corresponding period of 2022 (to US$ 4.68 billion from US$ 5.35 billion). Other markets in the EU region which showed decline in export are Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
However, exports to France, Spain and Italy have increased by 13.22%, 20.72% and 27.02% respectively (reached US$ 2.15 billion, US$ 2.91 billion and US$ 1.60 billion respectively). On the other hand, our exports to Denmark crossed US$1 billion with 15.26% growth during the mentioned period. At the same time, countries such as Latvia, Romania, Finland and Croatia have exhibited strong growth performance during the Jan-Sep, 2023 period.
Now, if we look at our export performance in the United States, the major market for Bangladesh, it saw a decline of 7.18% and came down to US$ 6.30 billion in January-September 2023 from US$ 6.79 billion in January-September 2022. On the other hand, our exports to the UK and Canada have shown 14.92% and 6.27% positive growth respectively during the mentioned nine months of 2023. During this time, our apparel exports to the UK and Canada reached US$ 4.07 billion and US$ 1.12 billion respectively.
Apart from the traditional markets, our export to non-traditional markets also increased significantly by 28.63% to US$ 6.57 billion from US$ 5.11 billion in January-September 2022. Among the major non-traditional markets, RMG export to Japan reached US$ 1.29 billion with 45.23% year-on-year growth. Exports to other non-traditional markets such as Australia, India, South Korea, China, and Turkey increased by 54.69%, 13.87%, 20.93%, 46.32%, 35.11% and 28.63% respectively.
In summary, the USA remains the largest market for Bangladesh as a single country accounting for 17.70% of our share, while the EU takes up around 49.22% share of our RMG export. Share of the UK and Canada reached 11.45% and 3.16%.
The share of non-traditional markets was recorded 18.47% during the mentioned period of 2023. The rise in the share of non-traditional markets is certainly a positive sign for our industry. The diversification of the market should continue in the coming days as we envision 100 billion dollars export by 2030, further specialization in major markets through product sophistication, diversification and value addition will be the key.
