Prices of Bangladeshi apparel items have taken a bigger hit compared to those made in Vietnam, in the all-important markets of USA and EU.
As per media reports, this was underlined in a study carried out by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in Bangladesh, which also cited some product-wise price comparisons between ‘Made in Bangladesh’ and ‘Made in Vietnam’ apparel items.
As per the CPD study, price of 100 kilogrammes of cotton fibre T-shirts (made in Bangladesh) went down by 1 per cent year-on-year to €1,091.5 in 2020 even as the same product made in Vietnam reached €2,157.9 in 2020 witnessing 3 per cent price rise.
Similarly, price of a dozen ‘Made in Bangladesh’ cotton T-shirts declined by 20 per cent to US $ 17.99 from that of US $ 22.43 in 2019, while cotton T-shirts, produced by Vietnam fell 17 per cent from US $ 38.2 in 2019 to US $ 31.9 in 2020.
Underlining that exchange rate management is emerging as a key factor, driving export competitiveness, the CPD study, reportedly, further maintained that Bangladesh’s export performance was driven by both volume and value factors even as it went on to add the export target set for fiscal 2021 to achieve 21 per cent growth over fiscal 2020 will not be achieved.
