The government has expressed concern over the performance of Bangladesh's missions in key countries such as the US, Germany, and the UAE, as they have failed to meet export earnings targets. According to stakeholders, the inability of these missions to achieve their targets poses a risk to foreign currency reserves.

The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) reported that the government had set a target of $62 billion for exports in the current fiscal year, with a strategic target of $46.26 billion for the July-March quarter. However, actual export earnings fell short by approximately $4.54 billion, or 5.86 percent below the target.

Moreover, key missions in Europe, including Brussels, Paris, and Madrid, also failed to meet export targets. Concerns have also been raised regarding the UAE's Dubai mission, where export income decreased by about 17.3 percent compared to the target.

Other important missions, such as Ottawa in Canada, New Delhi in India, Yangon in Myanmar, Singapore, and Tokyo in Japan, have similarly fallen short of achieving export targets.

EPB emergency meeting: EPB held a meeting with business representatives last Thursday to deal with the failure of the world's influential missions to meet their export targets.

EPB Vice Chairman and CEO AHM Ahsan expressed his displeasure over the decline in exports to influential countries in the meeting held at the office in the capital's Karwan Bazar. He asked BGMEA and BKMEA to give written reasons as soon as possible as to why the export income of important missions like Washington, Berlin, Dubai, Tokyo is decreasing.

A source of EPB present in the meeting said that letters will also be sent to the missions which could not meet the export target. Missions will be asked to explain why export trade is declining, where the challenges are.

An official of EPB, who did not want to be named, said that Bangladesh has 61 missions in different countries of the world to increase exports. These missions are given export revenue targets every year. The task of these missions is to take multidimensional initiatives to increase the export trade of the country. In addition, there are various activities including establishing effective connections between the government and business representatives of Bangladesh with the government and businessmen in the respective countries, creating a market for potential products, quickly informing the government if there are any challenges.

In addition to acting as an ambassador of Bangladeshi products, the main task of these missions is to introduce Bangladeshi exporters to importers to increase the speed of exports. However, most of the missions are failing.

Mohammad Hatem, the executive president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) told Bangladesh Pratidin, “Missions cannot directly play any role in increasing export orders. A couple of missions help traders, but not enough. The main reason for the decrease in exports is the decrease in sales in Europe-America. They are also giving less purchase orders. As a result, our factories are not able to work more than 50 per cent of their capacity. It is affecting Asian countries as well. In this situation, if the Iran-Israel tension increases, the export sector will be more threatened.”

(The report was published on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on April 27 and rewritten in English by Tanvir Raihan)