Bangladesh’s Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) said that, during the July–September quarter of the fiscal year 2024–25, the country’s exports increased by 5 per cent year over year to US $ 11.37 billion, mostly due to higher shipments of garments. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) was connected to a substantial discrepancy in export figures for the same time of the previous fiscal year, amounting to US $ 3.16 billion, which the bureau also discovered.
In light of the previous data anomalies, EPB authorities said at a recent press conference that regular export data release has resumed following a three-month pause. Stakeholders were given the assurance that data in the future would be consistent across the NBR and the EPB.
According to revised export data for September 2023, exporters made US $ 3.5 billion in September alone, a 6.78 per cent rise over the same month the previous year. It was a noteworthy month for exporters.
An early report of US $ 13.98 billion in export earnings for the July–September period of FY 2023–24 led to a data mistake that was later adjusted to US $ 10.82 billion. The vice-chairman of the EPB, Md. Anwar Hossain, clarified that mistakes in the NBR’s data entry were the cause of the discrepancies. The Bangladesh Bank bases its consideration of exports on realised earnings, but the NBR counts exports after tariff assessment.
For more than ten years, there have been doubts regarding the accuracy of export data; in the fiscal year 2022–2023, the discrepancy was estimated to be more than US $ 12 billion. Hossain said that the EPB has had fruitful talks with the NBR and the central bank to address the problems with data reporting, and he suggested changing the way that export earnings are calculated to take into account only after shipment.
Hossain determined that a primary cause of data inconsistencies was the repeated inputs made by NBR customs officials. Furthermore, the pricing for fabrics and accessories were mistakenly included in EPB’s calculations for garment orders handled under the cutting, making, and trimming (CMT) framework, instead of only the making charge. Furthermore, goods sent as samples were inadvertently counted as exports, inflating the published numbers.
Furthermore, exports from Export Processing Zones (EPZs) were tallied twice: once when they were being transported to nearby businesses and again when they were being shipped to overseas customers. Misreported figures were also influenced by unadjusted losses from stock-lot sales and misalignments between actual proceeds and initial letter of credit (LC) values.
The president of the Bangladesh Chamber of Industries, Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury Parvez, attacked the false export figures, claiming it encouraged public mistrust of clothing exporters and raised questions about potential money laundering. He stressed that inaccurate data entry from government agencies was the cause of the mistakes, which ultimately misled policymakers about the sector’s capacity during a phase-out of incentives.
The exaggerated data has been the subject of repeated warnings from garment exporters; yet, industry stakeholders are very concerned about the EPB’s previous unwillingness to address the matter.
