Bangladesh exports bounce back in August after fall previous month

Bangladesh exported goods worth $2.76 billion in August, a 28 percent from a year earlier, driven by an increase in garment shipments, government data showed on Tuesday.

Exports fell 12 percent, to $2.6 billion, in July from a year ago.

For the first two months of the 2015-16 financial year, exports rose 4.7 percent to nearly $5.4 billion from the previous year, the Export Promotion Bureau said.

Readymade garments, comprising knitwear and woven items, fetched $4.5 billion in July-August, compared with $4.2 billion in the same period a year ago.

Exports in the fiscal year ending in June rose 3.35 percent to $31.2 billion from a year earlier, but that was the slowest growth since 2002 and pivotal garment sales, while higher, missed their target.

Garments are a key foreign-exchange earner for Bangladesh, where low wages and duty-free access to Western markets have helped make it the world's second largest apparel exporter after China.

Bangladesh raised wages for garment workers and allowed them to form trade unions late in 2013 after a string of factory accidents thrust poor pay and conditions into the international spotlight.

The $25 billion export industry, which supplies many Western brands such as Wal-Mart, Tesco and H&M , came under scrutiny again when a building housing factories collapsed in 2013, killing more than 1,130 people.