Bangladesh exports rise annual 2.5 pct in September on garment sales

Bangladesh's exports rose 2.5 percent to $2.6 billion in September from a year earlier, driven by an increase in garment shipments, government data showed on Tuesday.

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.

For the first quarter of the 2015-16 financial year, exports rose nearly 1 percent to $7.76 billion from the previous year, the Export Promotion Bureau said.

Sales of ready-made garments, comprising knitwear and woven items, totalled $6.44 billion in the July-September period, up 3.3 percent from the year-earlier period.

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 garment sales, while higher, missed their target.

Two foreigners were shot dead last week in attacks claimed by the Islamic State, although police said there was no evidence the group was behind the attacks. There are some fears that the violence could threaten the garment industry, with exporters saying Western buyers had begun to cancel visits.

The garment industry, which supplies many brands such as Wal-Mart, JC Penney and H&M, has already been in the spotlight over several fatal accidents, such as the 2013 collapse of a building housing factories that killed more than 1,130 people.