Bangladesh's overall imports dropped by more than 10 per cent or US$509.03 million in April last mainly due to the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, bankers said.
Settlement of letters of credit (LCs), generally known as actual import, in terms of value, came down to $4.36 billion in April from $4.86 billion a month ago, according to the central bank's latest statistics. It was $4.23 billion in February 2021.
On the other hand, the opening of LCs, generally known as import orders, fell by nearly 14 per cent or $801.02 million to $5.02 billion in April from $5.82 billion a month before. It was $3.94 billion in February 2021.
"Our non-funded earnings from the foreign trade covering both export and import dropped significantly in the month of April mainly due to the second wave of the pandemic," a senior executive of a leading private commercial bank told the FE on Wednesday while explaining the latest import situation.
Earlier, on April 05 last, the government imposed a lockdown putting restrictions on public movement to curb the second wave of the Covid-19 infections.
The private banker also said most of the businessmen started to expand their business activities in February that continued until the middle of March because of lower coronavirus infection in Bangladesh.
"But the momentum has faced a roadblock by the third week of March when the deadly flu started spreading in a consistent manner," he explained.
Talking to the FE, a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said the overall import dropped slightly in April because of the second wave of the pandemic.
"But aggregate import payments during the July-April period of the current fiscal year (FY), 2020-21, increased compared with the same period of FY'20," the central bank said without mentioning the figures.
In April, the import of capital machinery and fuel oil dropped on the same grounds.
Actual imports through back-to-back LCs of ready-made garment (RMG) products dropped by 10 per cent to $507.04 million in April 2021 from $563.43 million a month before, the BB data showed.
"Such imports will increase in the coming months following the shifting of orders from China, Vietnam, and Myanmar," Sayeed Ahmad Chowdhury, director, operations of Square Denims, told the FE while explaining the latest situation of the apparel and clothing sector.
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