DHAKA: According to Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2016, unveiled in Bangkok by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) recently, Bangladesh has outperformed other Asia-Pacific countries in shipment of merchandise between 2010 and 2015.
As per the report, during the defined period, Bangladesh’s exports grew 14 per cent while the average export growth of the Asia-Pacific region was 7.5 per cent. Depending highly on textile and garments, which collectively accounted for 72.2 per cent of total exports, the country’s shipment in 2015 reportedly grew 6.5 per cent even as the region experienced export contraction of 9.7 per cent. The report further underlined that EU accounted for more than 44.5 per cent of the total exports by Bangladesh, followed by the US at 17.6 per cent and Japan at 3.3 per cent.
The report further mentioned that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have also grown robustly in Bangladesh, averaging 19.6 per cent per year during 2010-2015. In 2015, in particular, inflows into Bangladesh soared 44.1 per cent to reach US $ 2.2 billion. Amongst the different sectors, banking, textiles and energy attracted the largest amount of FDI, the report stated, adding, the US and the UK were the largest foreign investors, collectively accounting for 27.2 per cent of the FDI inflows to Bangladesh.
