Bangladesh loses 2nd spot to China in US apparel exports

Bangladesh has lost its second position in apparel exports to the United States, the world's largest economy, amid a continued slump. Although Bangladesh had held this position for a long time, China has recently recaptured it. As a result, the top two spots on the list are currently held by Vietnam and China respectively, followed by Bangladesh.

The information was revealed in the latest report published by the Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA), an agency under the US Department of Commerce. According to OTEXA data, Bangladesh exported $5.39 billion worth of readymade garments to the United States in the first eight months of this year (January to August). This earnings is 4.43 percent lower than the same period last year.

On the other hand, China exported $5.66 billion worth of garments to the United States during the same period. Although the country's exports fell 39.39 percent compared to the same period last year, China recaptured the second position by surpassing Bangladesh in terms of value.

It may be mentioned that in the previous seven months (January-July), Bangladesh exported $4.55 billion worth of garments, overtaking China to hold the second position.

The OTEXA report further shows that in the first eight months of this year, US traders imported a total of $49.07 billion worth of garments from the global market, which is 7.42 percent less than the same period last year ($53 billion).

Vietnam's exports, which hold the top spot in the US market, also fell 0.76 percent to $10.97 billion. The same picture was seen in terms of export volume or pieces. In the January-August period, Bangladesh exported 1.75 billion pieces of garments, which is 2.75 percent less than the previous year. However, China's garment export volume fell 21.61 percent and India's fell 24.91 percent. Alongside this, while exports in terms of pieces fell for Mexico, Pakistan and Honduras, Indonesia and Cambodia maintained positive growth of 8.53 percent and 7.18 percent respectively.

On the other hand, in terms of product prices or unit prices, a decline was observed in the export prices of almost all countries in the global market. Among them, the largest decline was in China (9.93 percent). Among other countries, the unit prices of Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh fell by 5.49, 2.04, 3.57 and 1.73 percent respectively. Additionally, the decline in Vietnam and Cambodia was slight — 0.58 and 0.25 percent respectively. However, in contrast, the unit prices of garments from Mexico and Honduras increased by 15.02 and 6.68 percent respectively.

Analysing the reasons behind the decline in apparel exports to the United States, former director of the apex garment exporters' organisation BGMEA, Mohiuddin Rubel, said, "In the overall calculation, US traders have imported less apparel. Its impact has also fallen on us. It has decreased for all our main competitor countries. But the growth we have lost is much less compared to China and India. Even then, China has surpassed us and moved to the second position. The reason is that China is doing aggressive marketing to hold the US market, meaning they are trying to hold the market by exporting garments at lower prices."

He further added, "Due to the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, all countries are facing problems in the US market. Tariffs being imposed at different rates at different times have changed all calculations."

Highlighting the internal crisis of the industry, Executive President of the knitwear manufacturers' organisation BKMEA, Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, said, "There was already a power problem in the country. The severe gas crisis started from July 21. Now it has somewhat eased. Because of the gas problem, it can be said that local spinning mills were closed for several days. During this time, we did not get any fabric from the mills. We could not produce garments; exports also did not happen. Its impact has also fallen on our main market, America."