Bangladesh said Tuesday its exports leapt 42 percent to a record $23 billion in the financial year to June as garment shipments soared thanks largely to a shift in orders away from China. In June the country shipped merchandise worth $2.39 billion - the also a record for a month - pushing the annual tally to $22.92 billion, with apparel making up more than 80 percent of the total, a government official said.
"It's an amazing figure. We had set a target to export $18.5 billion in the 2010-11 fiscal year, but achieved nearly $23 billion," said Jalal Ahmed, head of the Export Promotion Bureau in Dhaka. Shipments in the 2009-10 fiscal year grew a modest four percent to $16.2 billion as apparel orders dried up due to the global recession. Ahmed attributed the record growth to a shift in orders from increasingly costly China, relaxed import rules by the European Union and the recovery in the world economy.