Clothing exports could fully recover to pre-pandemic levels by October of this year as shipments rebound with the reopening of western retail stores, the BGMEA chairman said yesterday.

Between July and April of the current fiscal year, revenue increased 6.24% year over year to reach $ 26 billion, showing the industry’s resilience in the face of the Covid fallout. 19.

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Of that, $ 13.99 billion came from hosiery, which grew 15.34% year-over-year. Woven revenues fell 2.71 percent to $ 12 billion.

Knitwear shipments increase as people spend more time indoors. Due to the pandemic, the demand for woven clothing, such as formal shirts and pants, has plummeted. Exports of fabrics have fallen by more than 10 percent in most months over the past year.

April saw the smallest drop, meaning the segment is now rebounding thanks to the gradual reopening of stores and offices.

“The trend of clothing shipments is good with increasing demand in the western world,” Faruque Hassan, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), said at a briefing. press at his Gulshan office in Dhaka.

“I hope that the full recovery of exports of the clothing sector will be achieved by October of this year,” he said.

“We are optimistic that the majority of Americans have already completed immunizations and consumers have started going to retail outlets, indicating the economy is on,” he said.

“… And so the demand for consumer items, especially clothing items, is increasing,” Hassan said.

European retailers and brands have started to reopen stores as consumers spend more, for which demand for Bangladeshi clothing items has also increased.

In addition, work orders are transferred to Bangladesh from other countries like China, thanks to competitive prices and the setbacks of Covid-19.

Currently, the United States is the main destination for Bangladesh’s apparel exports, with nearly $ 6.5 billion worth of apparel items shipped in one year.

Of all that is exported to the United States, 90 percent is clothing.

In the case of the European Union, Bangladesh exports more than $ 21 billion worth of clothing per year, accounting for 63 percent of the country’s clothing shipments in one year.

Hassan also urged the government to view garment workers as frontline workers like doctors, as they continued to work to keep the wheels of industries running even when the pandemic was at its most severe.

Garment workers should therefore be vaccinated as a priority depending on the availability of jabs in the country, Hassan told reporters.

So far, no worker has succumbed to the virus although some have been infected.

However, Hassan could not indicate the exact number of workers in the garment sector who had been infected in the past one and a half years.

He also called for a 10 percent incentive on export earnings from apparel items made from man-made fibers, saying the country lags behind in the trade in clothes made from the specialized fabric.

The demand for articles of clothing made from man-made fibers is very high compared to that of cotton fibers.

About 80 percent of clothing sold in international markets is made from man-made fibers like polyester, polymer and staples.

However, 80 percent of Bangladesh’s total clothing exports are made from cotton fibers.

This is one of the main reasons why the lower prices are obtained from international retailers and brands.

A global drop in demand for clothing has also affected the price level over the past two years, especially since the rise of the pandemic, Hassan said.