This fiscal year, Bangladesh’s exports to the US rose by 14.92 per cent. Earnings from apparel exports to the US grew 14.60 per cent over the previous year’s earnings.

Exports to Germany were up 4.79 per cent. Germany imports 15.23 per cent of Bangladesh’s total exports. Export earnings from the UK rose by 4.51 per cent, which is 10.29 per cent of the total exports of Bangladesh. The lion’s share of Bangladesh’s exports is limited to 10 countries viz: US, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and Poland. The 10 countries import over 71 per cent of Bangladesh’s total exports.

Bangladesh is trying to reduce dependency on a few markets and diversify export destinations. The efforts are succeeding. Once, 65 per cent of Bangladesh’s total exports were limited to the US. That is now 17 per cent. Bilateral trade agreements are seen as a way to avail of duty-free market access to new countries such as the Russian federation and South Africa. Bangladesh provides a four per cent cash incentive against exports of apparel goods to non-traditional export markets. This is in addition to the one per cent incentive for all traditional export destinations.