Bangladesh's knitwear exporters are now eying Africa as they try to explore new markets for the country's top foreign currency earner. A BKMEA team left for South Africa and Botswana Saturday hoping to boost sales to the those countries, which now buy Bangladeshi products in small quantities.

"There are large demands for our products there," BKMEA chief Fazlul Huq told the bdnews24.com Saturday evening ahead of departure of the team he was leading. Now Bangladesh's knitwear exports, with the current fiscal target of US$ 7.3 billion, rely heavily on Europe and North America. Knit accounted for over 40 percent of the country's export revenue. Huq said one of his key targets would be to woo investors from these African nations.

The BKMEA delegation is scheduled to meet business leaders in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban,Minara and Capetown. On Oct 8, the BKMEA delegation will travel to Botswana where they are scheduled to meet ministers and senior civil servants. They will also meet members of the Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industries and Manpower, Botswana Export Manufacturers' Association and Botswana Export Development and Investment Authority. On Oct 9 evening, the knitwear exporters will attend a reception hosted by Bangladeshis living in South Africa.

Huq said he would invite business leaders of these two countries to the Fifth Bangladesh Knit Exposition 2009, scheduled for Nov 2-4 in Dhaka. The BKMEA had earlier visited Japan and Hong Kong on similar missions over the past three months and "have received good response". On Thursday, the government announced a revised export target of US$ 17.60 billion. Readymade garments will fetch as much as 79.46 percent of the target, according to the government projections. The target for knit alone is a staggering 41.46 percent. In 2009-10, the US$ 7.30 billion knitwear export target would represent a 13.5 percent growth on previous year. Last fiscal, US$ 6.43 billion came from knit exports, against a target of US$ 6.58 billion.

-bdnews