Does Bangladesh ship garments to the Middle East?

Bangladesh ships apparel items to the Middle Eastern countries and the good thing is local garments are steadily gaining popularity in the Middle eastern countries.

The United Arab Emirates is the biggest export destination of Bangladeshi apparels in the Middle East.

Bangladesh's apparel shipment to the western Asian nation posted a consistent growth in the last three years, as the amount increased from $168 million in 2020 to $246 million in 2021 and finally hit $311 million in 2022.

In percentage, the highest growth last year was posted in case of export to Turkey, 118 per cent.

Bangladeshi garment makers shipped $147 million worth of their produce to the transcontinental country in 2020, which experienced a 23 per cent year-on-year fall to hit $113 million the next year.

However, the next year export to Turkish markets rose significantly, as the Turks bought $247 million worth of clothing items from Bangladesh.

Apparel shipment to Kuwait has nearly doubled each year since 2020.

The country with the world's sixth largest oil reserves purchased $6 million worth of garment products in 2020, which doubled to $11.7 million the next year and hit $24 million in 2022.

The apparel goods sent to Kuwait may be small compared with the top three destinations in the middle east, but it booked the second highest year-on-year export growth of 101 per cent last year.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia stood third in the list of top five garment export destinations of Bangladesh.

Garment exports to the second largest country in the Arab world posted a 63 per cent year-on-year growth in 2021 and another 20 per cent growth in 2022.

Saudi Arabia imported $89 million worth of garments from Bangladesh in 2020, which reached $145 million in 2021 and $174 million last year.

Qatar also made it to the list of the top five garment export destinations of Bangladesh in the Middle East.

Apparel shipment to the country with the world's third largest natural gas reserves rose 61 per cent year-on-year to $4.35 million in 2021.

The next year the rich Arab nation's order for Bangladeshi clothes fell by over 8 per cent to nearly $4 million.

However, it is worth mentioning here that Bangladesh's RMG export to Qatar jumped 47 per cent last year compared to that of 2020.