RMG exports to USA growing fast

Situation improves over 50 pc

Industry Desk: Country’s RMG exports to the United States in January-May of 2022 grew by 59.06 per cent to $4.11 billion from $2.56 billion in the same period of 2021, according to the US Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel data.
After the Covid pandemic shock, global buyers started increasing their orders in 2021 to make a stock of products as their stores were almost empty, but the flow of additional orders decreased in recent times, former Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Md Fazlul Hoque said.
The data showed that Bangladesh’s single-month apparel export earnings from the US in May increased by 38.6 per cent or $226.95 million to $815 million from $588.04 million in the same month of the previous year.
Exporters said although Bangladesh’s readymade garments performed well in the US market for the past one year, the monthly export growth had slowed in the market since May 2022.
The country’s single-month apparel export earnings from the US topped the $1-billion mark with a 96.10-per cent growth for the first time in March 2022. Bangladesh’s single-month RMG export earnings from the US in April were $820.52 million with a 74.3-per cent growth, the data showed.
According to Export Promotion Bureau data, the country’s apparel exports to the US, the single highest export destination for Bangladesh, topped the $9-billion mark with an increase of 51.57 per cent in the financial year 2021-22 from the earnings of $5.94 billion in FY 2020-21.
Fazlul Hoque further said, “Not only in Bangladesh, I think the growth or apparel exports will decrease in all manufacturing countries as the Russia-Ukraine war has created an uncertainty in the global economy.”
Fazlul said that the flow of apparel export orders in Bangladesh decreased by nearly 20 per cent in the past two months.
In terms of volume, the apparel exports to the US from Bangladesh in the five months of 2022 grew by 43.72 per cent or 450 million square metres to 1,478 million square metres from 1,028 million square metres in the same period of 2021, the data showed.
In May 2022, the apparel exports to the US from Bangladesh increased by 21.10 per cent or 48.84 million square metres to 280.85 million square metres from 232 million square metres in the same month of 2021.
The OTEXA data showed that the total US imports of RMG from the world in January-May of 2022 increased by 40.11 per cent to $40.94 billion compared with that of $29.22 billion in the same period of the previous year.
The US apparel imports from China in the first five months of 2022 grew by 41.99 per cent to $8.27 billion from $5.82 billion in the same period of 2021.
RMG imports by the US from Vietnam in January-May of 2022 increased by $32.98 per cent to $7.64 billion from $5.74 billion in the same period of the past year.
India’s RMG exports to the US market in the first five months of 2022 grew by 55.06 per cent to $2.69 billion from $1.73 billion in the same period of the previous year.
RMG imports by the US from Indonesia in January-May of 2022 increased by 69.75 per cent to $2.54 billion while the imports from Cambodia grew by 47.05 per cent to $1.82 billion in the same period, the data showed.