Bangladesh 3

Bangladesh cheapest source of innerwear

Bangladesh remains the cheapest source of innerwear in the global export market but falls behind its competitors in terms of volume because of infrastructure bottlenecks.

Although low labour costs make Bangladesh the cheapest destination for innerwear production, delays in delivery and import dependency on raw materials has prevented the country from topping the exporters' list in terms of volume, the New Age daily reported Tuesday.

The daily quoted the US Commerce Department report on textiles import released recently. The US report shows Bangladesh ranked fifth among global suppliers even though it sells innerwear at a cheaper 'per dozen' rate than the first four countries on the list.

Even after the global quota system was scrapped earlier this year, Bangladesh exported innerwear at a 'per dozen' rate lower than that of China.

The report shows that during January-September 2005, Bangladeshi exporters shipped more than 9.5 million pieces of cotton innerwear to the US market and shared about 5.53 percent of the market share.

Other Asian competitors - China, Thailand and India - remained behind in the race as they shared 5.36 percent, 4.46 percent and 3.71 percent respectively.

Honduras was the top supplier with 19.42 percent of the market share, El Salvador followed with 17.3 percent of the market share while the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica stood third and fourth.

The four Central American countries accounted for over half of all US innerwear shipments in 2005, although Chinese exports surged until they were finally embargoed in July. Recent trade rules stipulate that Chinese exports will be limited to around 20 million dozen from January 2006.