Bangladesh's garment exports begin to show year-on-year decline in Sep' 22

The latest data showed that Bangladesh's garment exports in September reached 3.16 billion US dollars, down 7.5% year-on-year and 15.6% month-on-month, which was the first year-on-year decline in Bangladesh’s garment exports since August last year. Knitted garment exports fell by 9% year-on-year, woven garments exports decreased by 5.7% year-on-year, and home textiles exports saw 18.4% drop. The growth rate of home textiles exports gradually declined after the sharp increase previously.

Except for the April 2020, when Bangladesh's garment exports were ravaged by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the conventional monthly exports of Bangladesh's garment was 2.5-3 billion US dollars, and exceeded 3 billion US dollars since the fourth quarter of last year. By September, monthly exports still maintained at around 3.1 billion US dollars, indicating that Bangladesh's clothing exports were still at a high level despite the year-on-year decline in September. However, with the deepening of European energy problems and the inflation in the United States, it was expected that Bangladesh's clothing exports would still face great pressure on the later market. Yet, as it still possessed certain resilience, there's a good chance that Bangladesh's apparel exports would drop in fluctuation.

Bangladesh's declining garment exports would affect its imports of textiles and semi-finished textile products, which could further lead to the reduction of imports from China. From January to August this year, China's textile and garment exports to Bangladesh toppled 6.54 billion US dollars, increased by about 30% year-on-year. Among them, textiles amounted to 6.41 billion US dollars, accounting for 98%, showing that textile dominated China's textile and apparel exports to Bangladesh.

(Note: The influence of the Spring Festival from January to February is excluded)

2019-2020 China's monthly textiles exports to Bangladesh hovered around $500 million, and it gradually increased since 2021. By December 2021, the exports exceeded 1 billion US dollars, reaching the monthly high point in recent years. After that, it began to decline, yet were still higher than that of 2019, which showed that China's textile exports to Bangladesh performed well this year. Later on, as Bangladesh were expected to be under greater pressure for garment exports , its import of China's semi-finished textile products would also be affected.