Business

Bangladesh's apparel exports to the EU fall 11.7% in eight months

Eurostat data show shipments to Bangladesh's biggest export market dropped to €11.92 billion in January-August, a steeper fall than the EU's total apparel imports. Vietnam and China gained ground.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 18 Oct 2026, 08:47

Garment workers leave a factory in Bangladesh during a break. Bangladesh's apparel exports to the European Union fell about 11.7 per cent in January-August 2026. File photo: Nahid Sultan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Nahid Sultan / Wikimedia Commons

Bangladesh's apparel exports to the European Union fell 11.7 per cent year on year to €11.92 billion in January-August 2026, according to Eurostat data released on 16 October.

The decline was steeper than the 3.83 per cent fall in the EU's total apparel imports, which dropped to €60.28 billion from €62.69 billion a year earlier. Vietnam raised its shipments to the bloc by 4.46 per cent to about €3 billion, while China, the largest supplier, recorded a 2.38 per cent fall to €19.25 billion.

Bangladesh's share of the EU apparel market slipped to 19.78 per cent from 21.54 per cent, and its exports showed the steepest fall among major suppliers, The Financial Express and New Age reported, using the same Eurostat figures. Bangladesh shipped 866.76 million kilograms of apparel, down 4.58 per cent, and its average unit price fell 7.43 per cent to €13.76 a kilogram, against an EU average of €19.65.

Industry figures blamed weaker European demand, sharper competition and domestic constraints including the energy crisis and logistics costs. They said Vietnam's lead in man-made fibre garments and a logistics advantage of 15 to 20 days were decisive, and pointed to the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, which is progressively cutting tariffs on Vietnamese goods and is due to remove them in 2027.

Inamul Haq Khan, a senior vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said China and India had run into US tariffs and were offering lower prices to win European orders. Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, executive president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said Bangladesh could not take all the small, fast man-made fibre orders because it has to import the raw materials.

Other major suppliers also lost ground: Turkey's apparel exports to the EU fell 11 per cent to €5.10 billion, India's 10.8 per cent to €3.07 billion, Cambodia's 4.51 per cent to €2.81 billion and Pakistan's 9.63 per cent to €2.29 billion.

The Daily Star, quoting the state news agency BSS, reported that August figures showed some recovery: compared with August 2025, the EU's apparel import value rose 0.72 per cent. Former BGMEA director Mohiuddin Rubel said Bangladesh had done better in the past three months than in the first five, and that the EU accounts for nearly half of Bangladesh's apparel exports.

Sources & further reading

Spotted an error? Read our corrections policy

Keep reading

NEXT STORY World

Trump mocks the name 'Mohammad' while joking about Iran at a Georgia rally

The US president told a campaign crowd to 'just say Mohammad' if unsure of a Middle Eastern name, drawing criticism from Muslim advocacy groups.

ScrollBeat Desk18 Oct 2026, 10:32Open this article

US President Donald Trump. Official portrait by Daniel Torok, released into the public domain. Daniel Torok, The White House

US President Donald Trump made a joke about the popularity of the name Mohammad in the Muslim world as he mocked Iran's presidency during a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia, on 16 October, ahead of the 3 November midterm elections.

"You know, if you're in doubt about somebody's name from the Middle East, just say 'Mohammad,'" Trump told the crowd in a hangar at Dalton Municipal Airport. "You have about a 65% chance. 'Hello, Mohammad.' I've done it for years now. I've never been wrong."

Mohammad is one of the most common male names among Muslims, who often name their sons after the Prophet Mohammad, the founder of Islam.

After telling the crowd that "Iran is the only country where nobody wants to be president", Trump pretended to ask several people named Mohammad whether they wanted the job. Masoud Pezeshkian has been Iran's president since 2024. The Georgia crowd gave the joke a muted response.

Rights advocates and Muslim advocacy groups criticised the remarks. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose annual report this year attributed rising Islamophobia in the United States in part to Trump's crackdown on immigration and pro-Palestinian protests, has repeatedly faulted his rhetoric. He has intensified such comments during the midterm campaign season, particularly against Muslim Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, who came to the US as a Somali refugee.

Trump also repeated his vow that Iran would never get a nuclear weapon, seven months after the United States and Israel launched a war on Tehran aimed in part at crippling its nuclear programme.

NEXT STORY Business

Bangladesh cuts subsidised rice and flour targets as safety-net spending shifts

The Open Market Sale programme will target 240,000 tonnes of rice and 350,000 tonnes of flour this year, down from last year's sales, while its subsidy falls by Tk 685 crore.

ScrollBeat Desk18 Oct 2026, 10:32Open this article

Kalijira, a Bangladeshi rice variety. The government sells subsidised rice through Open Market Sale outlets. Photo: Masum-al-Hasan Rocky, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Masum-al-Hasan Rocky, Wikimedia Commons

Bangladesh has lowered its targets for selling subsidised rice and flour to low-income households through the Open Market Sale (OMS) programme, after the government cut the scheme's subsidy for the current fiscal year.

Food Ministry data presented at the first meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry on 15 October set an OMS target of 240,000 tonnes of rice and 350,000 tonnes of flour for FY27, The Business Standard reported. In FY26 the government sold 304,000 tonnes of rice and 449,000 tonnes of flour.

The subsidy allocation for OMS was cut by Tk 685 crore to Tk 3,411 crore, down from Tk 4,096 crore a year earlier. A Food Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the allocation was adjusted as part of wider changes to social safety-net spending and that the decision was not final; more funds could be provided if needed.

Under the programme, rice sells at Tk 30 a kilogram, loose flour at Tk 24 a kilogram and a two-kilogram packet of flour at Tk 55, through 1,125 outlets run by dealers nationwide. The government has also stopped selling rice through the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh this year, after offering it at subsidised prices last year.

The move follows an existing slide in subsidised distribution. Food ministry data show the government distributed 7.55 lakh tonnes of grain in July-September of FY27, down 7 percent year on year, with OMS sales falling 22 percent to 2.05 lakh tonnes, The Daily Star reported.

Economists warned that the timing is difficult for poor households. "In view of inflation, food distribution should have been increased. We see the opposite," said Nazneen Ahmed, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue. Selim Raihan of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling said cutting food distribution at such a time risks worsening food insecurity and indebtedness.

Trading Corporation of Bangladesh data around mid-October put medium-quality rice at Tk 56-65 a kilogram in Dhaka, while market visits found coarse and medium varieties had risen by Tk 1-2 a kilogram over the previous week.

Pressure on households remains high. September's 12-month average inflation was 8.65 percent, and the World Bank says about 6.2 crore people are one economic shock away from poverty, with national poverty projected to rise to 22.5 percent in 2026. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has projected that about 1.81 crore people would face acute food insecurity between September and December.