Staff Correspondent : Bangladesh performed the worst among leading apparel exporters to the United States as the country registered the highest negative growth in January 2024.

The country’s apparel export to the US, the largest export destination for Bangladesh, in January 2024 fell by 36.50 cent in value and 34 per cent in volume, according to the data from the US Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel released on Friday.

Exporters said that it was very much unusual that Bangladesh’s apparel exports to the US market registered a 36.50-per cent negative growth year-on-year when China’s exports declined by 2 per cent and Vietnam’s exports by 4.76 per cent.

China gained its share in the US market as the country has cut down the prices of apparel significantly in recent months, they said.

Fazlul Hoque, a former president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, on Saturday said that China had cut the prices of its apparel products significantly against the backdrop of global economic turmoil and high inflation in the western countries.

‘Most probably, China has getting the advantage of price cut and gaining export share in the US market,’ he said.

Fazlul, however, said that the overall export orders started increasing in Bangladesh and hopefully apparel exports to the US would increase in the coming months.

The data showed that Bangladesh’s apparel exports to the US market in the first month of 2024 fell to $550 million from $866 million in the same month of 2023.

In terms of volume, apparel imports by the US from Bangladesh in January of 2024 fell to 175.64 million square metres compared with those of 266 million square metres in the same month of 2023.

The total apparel imports by the US from different countries in January 2024 dropped by 16.53 per cent to $6.04 billion compared with those of $7.23 billion in the same month of the previous year.

Mahmud Hasan Khan Babu, a former vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said that it was unusual that Bangladesh witnessed a 36.5-per cent negative growth in the US market in January 2024.

‘It is difficult to say why Bangladesh registered the highest negative growth among top apparel exporters to the US market, but our export share is increasing in the new markets and it would help to cover the fall in the traditional market,’ he said.

Mahmud also said that work orders in his factories had increased in the past few months.

According to the US data, Bangladesh’s position remained unchanged as the third-largest apparel exporter in the US market with a 9.1-per cent share in January of 2024 while China and Vietnam occupied the first and the second highest positions with 21.26 per cent and 18.42 per cent share respectively.

US apparel import from China in January 2024 declined by 2.03 per cent to $1.41 billion compared with that of $1.44 billion in the same month of the previous year.

The OTEXA data showed that Vietnam’s RMG export to the US in the first month of this year fell by 4.76 per cent to $1.20 billion compared with that of $1.27 billion in the same month of 2023.

Apparel import by the US from India in January 2021 fell by 27.11 per cent to $353.71 million compared with that of $485.27 million in the same month of 2023.

RMG export by Indonesia to the US in the first month of 2024 also fell by 34.49 per cent to $297 million compared with that of $453.26 million in the same month of 2023.

The US RMG import from Cambodia in January 2024 also decreased by 10.65 per cent to $252.79 million compared with that of $282.93 million in the same month of 2023, the data showed.