Bangladesh can increase its exports to European Union (EU), which is a bloc of 27 nations, by another US $ 18 billion from the current US $ 23 billion.
This was maintained in a study carried out by the RAPID or Research and Policy Integration for Development with the cooperation of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Bangladesh.
As per the study, over the past decades, the EU has emerged as an indispensable trade and development partner for Bangladesh and is by far the largest export market as almost half of Bangladesh’s merchandise exports are destined for the EU.
It may be mentioned here that Bangladesh’s combined exports to the EU and UK increased rapidly from US $ 2.5 billion in 2000-01 to US $ 25 billion in 2021-21, thanks to the Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative, which has been designed to provide preferential duty-free and quota-free market access of goods originating from the least developed countries (LDCs).
