Export receipts hit rock-bottom at $520.01 million. The earnings nosedived five times from the previous month and 82.9 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Export Promotion Bureau — in what is the clearest harbinger of Bangladesh’s export prospects in the near future as the rogue virus continues to ram the global economy towards its worst recession since the Great Depression. RMGs which bring home as much as 84 percent of the export earnings, fetched just $378.40 million, down from $2.26 billion in March. This is not unexpected as the EU alone represents 64 percent of our total RMG exports–while the US is around 17 percent. Since both the economies are headed for a recession it’s not unexpected that the exports will fall even further in the near future. But there is a silver lining in the cloud –if we can grab it. We can try to increase our expert competitiveness by cutting down lead time of importing of raw materials which is mainly due to inefficient port and airport management and other physical infrastructure, multiple certification and standards .
Another reason why we aren’t productive enough is due to our workers low productivity which is the lowest in SAARC nations–Pakistan and India have double our productivity while Sri Lanka has almost four times our labour productivity. Part of the reason for this is that our workers aren’t paid enough to maintain anything close to a living wage and this lead to an impaired functioning due to low calorific intakes. So if we can build up the communications infrastructure like the Dhaka -Chattogram Highway, maintain proper energy supplies and ensure that our workers get a decent wage, among other things, we can easily double our productivity and thus ensure that our industry remain capable of taking over the work orders that China will lose as many suppliers will try to outsource to other nations.
If we don’t countries which are more productive like Vietnam will take over the orders. In this vacuum we must act.
