Bangladesh’s exports to Turkey in the first ten months of the current fiscal fell by 19.35 per cent.

Turkey was a very promising market for Bangladesh. A good quantity of apparels used to be re-exported to Russia from Turkey. But Bangladesh lost its competitiveness in Turkey’s market as the country imposed a safeguard duty on apparel imports in 2011.

Turkey imposed the safeguard duty at a rate of 17 per cent in September 2011 on apparel imports from least developed countries, including Bangladesh.

Following the imposition of the safeguard duty, Bangladesh’s exports to Turkey declined by 24.23 per cent in fiscal year ’12 from fiscal year ’11, while the exports in fiscal year ’13 rose by 15.57 per cent. The country’s exports to Turkey in fiscal year ’14 grew by 34.23 per cent.

Export earnings from Turkey in fiscal year ’15 fell by 15.80 per cent. Export earnings from Turkey declined by 8.18 per cent in fiscal year ’16 while earnings fell by 4.57 per cent in fiscal year ’17.

Turkey is also a major readymade garment producing country and a competitor of Bangladesh on the global market with annual clothing exports of around 17 billion dollars and textile exports of nearly ten billion dollars.