Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The country’s frozen foods exports in the first 11 months of outgoing fiscal registered a negative growth in the wake fluctuations of global currencies and decreasing demand for shrimps abroad, insiders said.
They said, the ongoing volatility of global currencies like Euro, Ruble and US dollar contributed to the falling shrimp prices, affecting the growth of sea food export.
Shrimp is contributing the major share of export in the frozen foods sub-sector.
According to an official figure, Bangladesh earned US$529.92 million from frozen foods export during July-May period of the fiscal
2014-15, showing a negative growth of 8.39 per cent from a year earlier.
Of the total, it has earned US$474.52 million from shrimp export and US$ 8.97 million from others of the sector.
“Our export went to negative territory during the said period due to volatility of the value of Euro, Ruble and the US dollar against Bangladeshi Taka,” Sk Md Abdul Baki, Vice-President of Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) told The New Nation on Friday.
He said, fall of local shrimps in the international market is also responsible for the gloomy export performance of frozen foods. Md Abdul Baki further said that the prevailing export scenario had pushed the exporters and fish farmers to tight corners and they are now suffering from acute crisis in working capital.
“The fall of export of fresh water prawns and back tiger shrimps forced the exporters to sell them in the domestic market leading them to incur huge financial loss,” he said.
He further said that they bought them from the farmers at high prices and now we are selling them at lower prices to release their stocks.
In order to improve the situation, he recommended the government to offer financial incentives for the exporters.
In the fiscal 2013-14, Bangladesh earned US$638.19 million from the exports of frozen foods, of which shrimp shipment accounted from over 90 per cent of the total export.
The country’s frozen foods exports in the first 11 months of outgoing fiscal registered a negative growth in the wake fluctuations of global currencies and decreasing demand for shrimps abroad, insiders said.
They said, the ongoing volatility of global currencies like Euro, Ruble and US dollar contributed to the falling shrimp prices, affecting the growth of sea food export.
Shrimp is contributing the major share of export in the frozen foods sub-sector.
According to an official figure, Bangladesh earned US$529.92 million from frozen foods export during July-May period of the fiscal
2014-15, showing a negative growth of 8.39 per cent from a year earlier.
Of the total, it has earned US$474.52 million from shrimp export and US$ 8.97 million from others of the sector.
“Our export went to negative territory during the said period due to volatility of the value of Euro, Ruble and the US dollar against Bangladeshi Taka,” Sk Md Abdul Baki, Vice-President of Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) told The New Nation on Friday.
He said, fall of local shrimps in the international market is also responsible for the gloomy export performance of frozen foods. Md Abdul Baki further said that the prevailing export scenario had pushed the exporters and fish farmers to tight corners and they are now suffering from acute crisis in working capital.
“The fall of export of fresh water prawns and back tiger shrimps forced the exporters to sell them in the domestic market leading them to incur huge financial loss,” he said.
He further said that they bought them from the farmers at high prices and now we are selling them at lower prices to release their stocks.
In order to improve the situation, he recommended the government to offer financial incentives for the exporters.
In the fiscal 2013-14, Bangladesh earned US$638.19 million from the exports of frozen foods, of which shrimp shipment accounted from over 90 per cent of the total export.
