Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- A stronger Yen has made mixed impact in Bangladesh as Japanese cars and textile machineries are becoming expensive here while local garment exporters cheering as their robustly growing shipments to Japan become more lucrative.
The Japanese currency, which was traded at 85 per US dollar on Friday, gained 10 per cent in the past three or four months, making significant impact in Japan-Bangladesh trade.
“Strong Japanese Yen has started making major impact in car market here,” Abdul Haque, a director of the Japan-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was quoted by the New Age, a local newspaper, as saying.
Owner of the Haq’s Bay Automobiles, Mr. Haque said the stronger Yen had pushed up procurement cost of the high selling reconditioned cars by BDT 100,000 to BDT 200,000 per unit.
Mojubul Alam, managing director, of Knit Technology Limited told the newspaper that they were struggling as strong Yen had pushed up import cost of all Japanese machinery.
“We are forced to keep our sales low as clients are unwilling to pay increased cost for the machine,” said Mr. Alam, who represents Shima Seiki brand knitting machines from Japan.
Japanese stitching machine brands like Juki and Brother are very popular among the export-oriented garment manufacturers in Bangladesh so they will have also to pay more for their fresh procurements.
But readymade garment exporters are cheerful as stronger the Yen is helping them to earn more on their readymade garment shipments to Japan.
Already, before the Yen became strong, Japanese apparel importers had been coming to Bangladesh increasingly for the last couple of years or so as Japanese were looking for new sourcing destinations, the newspaper reported.
BBN/SI/AD-22Aug10-10:52 am (BST)
