IN the wake of deadly coronavirus outbreak, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi fears that the country’s exports might plunge if the situation deteriorates in the countries where Bangladesh sells its products. However, it is an apprehension but the situation is not such that buyers decreased their orders from Bangladesh. It is too early to predict the damages, but the government was trying to assess the damages Bangladesh would face due to the coronavirus outbreak. Bangladesh faced trouble due to the epidemic as more than 60 per cent of raw materials came from China. China is the single largest supplier of industrial raw materials for readymade garments and other sectors of Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the cases of coronavirus infection are increasing in Italy, the US, Germany, France, Japan, Spain, the Netherlands and some other countries.
It could appear as a big threat for Bangladesh as 63 per cent of the country’s total export earnings come from European countries. In particular, the supply chain disruption in both the backward and forward linage might take place due to the outbreak of coronavirus. Not only that, the International Monetary Fund has predicted that the global economic growth would come down to half from the projection this year due to the viral attack. Normally, Bangladesh’s export earnings witnessed nearly 5 per cent negative growth in eight months of the current financial year 2019-20. Can we raise the question why the export faced such situation when there was no coronavirus? So, deficit in export earnings is nothing new for Bangladesh. And now it is thought that the earnings might decrease more in the coming months due to the outbreak. What’s true is that no effective measure was taken by the ministry concerned to gear up exports in the previous months.
We cannot rule out the possibility that the persons responsible for ensuring high volumes of exports would cash in on the coronavirus issue this time to hide their failure and incapability.
