On wednesday The government has set a target of USD 72 billion in export earnings in the current financial year 2023-24. Out of which USD 62 billion has been earmarked for the goods sector and USD 10 billion for the services sector. Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi gave this information to reporters after the meeting regarding setting export targets for the financial year 2023-24 in the conference room of the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday.
The commerce minister said that the export revenue target for the fiscal year 2022-23 for goods and services was 58 billion US dollars. Revenue against target was US$ 55.56 billion. This time, the target of export income has been set at 72 billion US dollars, an increase of 11.59 percent over last year.
Stating that the government has set an export target of 100 billion US dollars by 2030, he said that it is possible to achieve the target set in the current fiscal year and businessmen have agreed with our statement. Leaders of various business organizations have demanded to ensure gas-electricity-fuel and other facilities to achieve export targets. We have heard them and have been assured that steps will be taken by the government to meet their demands.
Export targets for the last two financial years and the rate of achievement against the target for determining export targets for goods and services sectors, growth trends achieved in the export sector in recent financial years, financial and non-financial incentives taken by the government for product and market expansion and diversification, recent trends in world trade, domestic and global economy The minister mentioned that the export targets for the current fiscal year 2023-24 have been set considering the impact of the war in Ukraine and the development of new goods and services with export potential.
In response to a question from the journalists, the commerce minister said that the upcoming national elections will follow its normal process as per the constitution. Nothing will be closed in the country because of the elections. Office-court, bank-insurance, business-trade will continue normally. Hence there is unlikely to be any adverse impact on the achievement of export targets during an election year.
Tipu Munshi said that various organizations have predicted positive growth in most economies of South Asia by the end of 2023. If this forecast is correct, the GDP growth in Bangladesh will be 6.8%. Taking into account the forecasts made by various international trade organizations so far, this year’s recession will begin to end at the end of the year and the world economy will return to growth in the next year.
Highlighting the statistics of the previous fiscal year, the minister said that in the fiscal year 2022-23, against the target of 58.00 billion dollars, 55.56 billion dollars have been achieved in the commodity sector, which is about 95.8% of the target and 6.6% more than the previous fiscal year 2021-22.
The goods and services sector together achieved $64.55 billion against the target of $67.00 billion, which is about 96.3% of the target and 5.8% higher than the previous fiscal year 2021-22. The meeting chaired by the Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, Tapan Kanti Ghosh, was attended by the leaders of various business organizations, representatives of the relevant ministries/departments/organizations and senior officials of the ministry.
