Experts at said inconsistent policies and trade regulations are creating uncertainty for exporters making it difficult for them to plan long term investment to achieve export diversification.
They made the observations at Sanem Annual Economists Conference in Dhaka on Sunday.
"Bangladesh needs a broad base export policy, addressing all bottlenecks and high tariff issues for export diversification," said Selim Raihan, executive director of South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (Sanem).
He made the observation at a session on "Challenges of export diversification and structural transformation in Bangladesh" at the 7th edition of the Sanem Annual Economists Conference (SAEC) at BRAC Centre Inn in the capital on Monday.
He said the overall import tariff line in Bangladesh is 40 percent; which is much higher than in India, Malaysia, and Vietnam. "Besides, volatile and artificially maintained exchange rates created bottleneck for export diversification during the last few years," he said.
Syed Akhtar Mahmood, a former lead private sector specialist at the World Bank Group, said in 1995 the economy and exports of Bangladesh and Vietnam were almost the same, and in some cases, Bangladesh was ahead of Vietnam.
"But, during the last 30 years, Vietnam has improved a lot while Bangladesh has remained almost the same," he said.
Vietnam has performed well due to its policies and support conducive to foreign direct investments, he said, blaming lack of necessary policy reforms for Bangladeshs failure to attract an expected level of FDIs.
According to Syed Akhtar Mahmood around $100 billion of Vietnams exports come from the electronics sector, which accounts for about 70 percent of the countrys total earnings from the external sector.
"Bangladesh had the same potential. But it did not happen due to lack of timely policy support," he pointed out.
Bangladeshi exporters shipped goods worth $55.56 billion in the fiscal 2022-23, ending in June.
Mahmood blamed lack of timely rules and regulatory reforms as reasons for Bangladeshs failure to diversify exports, which remained dominated by garments.
Syed Nasim Manzur, managing director of Apex Footwear Ltd said the leather and agriculture sectors have the same potential like RMG sector to increase the export volume if both were granted an identical facility and importance.
He said export diversification is developed through relations, connectivity, and value-chain management. "We need supply chain management and innovative ideas with proper implementation in order to increase product diversification for export market. It will happen only if policy reforms are put in place."
Zaidi Sattar, chairman of Policy Research Institute, alleged anti-export policy and high tariff on import of raw materials for preventing the export sector from tapping its true potential.
There are about 1,500 non-garment products in Bangladesh that are not getting facilities like the garment sector despite having an immense potential to contribute to the export sector, he said.
