Exports falling for last 3 years, Bangladesh Bank says

Bangladesh's exports have been declining for the last three years although the data from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) showed an upward trend, said the central bank today.

The estimated total exports for the last fiscal year of 2023-24 are likely to be around $42 billion, which is $10 billion less than the figure reported by the EPB based on customs data, it said.

The BB did not publish the export data for the previous fiscal years. The EPB is also yet to disclose it. 

The disclosure comes after the central bank identified the discrepancy in export data and published figures of the balance of payments for July-April of FY24. 

It said that actual exports in the first 10 months of the fiscal year were nearly $14 billion below the value earlier published by the EPB.

Similarly, the BB detected inflated export data by the EPB in the July-May period of 2023-24. It said exports were around $10 billion lower than EPB's data.

According to the EPB, earnings from merchandise shipment rose 6.67 percent year-on-year to $55.55 billion in 2022-23 and surged 34.38 percent to $52.08 billion in 2021-22.