Bangladesh is a major exporter of denim jeans to EU27. Being low priced and with special and indefinite duty free and quota free access under ‘Everything but arms’ initiative to EU , Bangladesh continues to dominate the EU denim import business. Currently, it has about 19% share of the denim jeans import market in EU27 countries.
Lets have a look at the figures of imports of denim jeans from Bangladesh for the last 10 years .
| Year | Total Denim Jeans (million pcs) | Value (million Euros) | Average Price (Euro/pc CIF) |
| 2000 | 16.46 | 87.92 | 5.34 |
| 2001 | 25.50 | 120.26 | 4.72 |
| 2002 | 32.69 | 144.69 | 4.43 |
| 2003 | 48.50 | 190.87 | 3.94 |
| 2004 | 63.71 | 247.52 | 3.88 |
| 2005 | 63.29 | 245.42 | 3.88 |
| 2006 | 85.07 | 341.78 | 4.02 |
| 2007 | 74.57 | 289.98 | 3.89 |
| 2008 | 81.94 | 317.23 | 3.87 |
| 2009 | 89.68 | 373.93 | 4.17 |
Thus we can see that the exports of denim jeans have increased by almost 400% from 2000 to 2009 . There have been some years in which the exports increased by a large % as compared to the previous year . These years have been :
2001 : Increase 54%
2002 : Increase 28%
2003 : Increase 48%
2004 : Increase 31%
2006 : Increase 34%
2009 : Increase 10%
The prices from Bangladesh have been more or less moving in a narrow range of Euro 3.8 to 4.20 since 2003. Though in earlier years, the prices were much higher, but recent years have seen the prices move around in this range. There is no clear trend in the prices from Bangladesh if we consider these figures. However, would it be the similar situation if the Euro prices were converted to dollar prices . In the table below, we have taken the average conversion factor (from Euro to USD) for each year from 2000 to 2009 and applied the factor to the average prices for that year. This gives us the average dollar prices for export of denim jeans from Bangladesh to Eu . With this table we will come to know whether there is really no trend for prices from Bangladesh:
| Year | Euro To USD average factor |
Av Price (Euro) | Av. Price (USD) |
| 2000 | 1.09 | 5.34 | 4.89 |
| 2001 | 1.12 | 4.72 | 4.21 |
| 2002 | 1.06 | 4.43 | 4.18 |
| 2003 | 0.89 | 3.94 | 4.42 |
| 2004 | 0.80 | 3.88 | 4.85 |
| 2005 | 0.80 | 3.88 | 4.85 |
| 2006 | 0.80 | 4.02 | 5.02 |
| 2007 | 0.73 | 3.89 | 5.32 |
| 2008 | 0.68 | 3.87 | 5.69 |
| 2009 | 0.72 | 4.17 | 5.79 |
In the table and chart above, we can see that actually the prices from Bangladesh are quite different than what Euro prices show. We can see that since 2002 the average prices in Euro terms (from 2002 to 2009) have declined by more than 5% whereas there is an uptrend in dollar terms and the prices have increased from $4.43 per piece in 2002 to $ 5.79 in 2009 – actually showing an increase of about 30%
Dollar being the ruling currency worldwide, gives a better picture of the prevailing price situation and it clearly reflects that the prices from Bangladesh are continuously and steadily rising over the years. This is despite the fact that the volumes have increased manifold during this period. The Bangaldesh denim export industry is only expected to grow stronger in the coming times . We have seen a number of denim mills also come up in Bangladesh and this strengthens the supply chain making it easier for Bangaldesh to go deeper into these markets.
Also check : Exports of Jeans from Bangladesh to USA
