Bangladesh has emerged as the third largest exporter of knitwear garments to European Union (EU) in last fiscal year after China and Turkey, according to the chief of the country's knitwear manufacturers' association Wednesday.

President of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) Fazlul Hoque told Xinhua that Bangladesh is gaining momentum due to its self-sufficiency and competitive workforce and strength in backward linkage.

In last 2007-08 fiscal year (July 2007-June 2008), Bangladesh exported knitwear items worth around 5.532 billion U.S. dollars to over 90 countries in the world and the target for this fiscal is 6. 0 billion U.S. dollars.

Of total export in the last fiscal year, Fazlul Hoque said the country earned around 3.50 billion U.S. dollars from exports of knit items to European Union countries.

"We are giving relentless efforts to stay on our new third position which we managed to achieve as Indonesia and China's Hong Kong lost their grounds in exports of knitwear," said the president of the BKMEA.

"We have also managed to achieve expected growth in first quarter of the current 2008-09 fiscal year by boosting exports," he said.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, Bangladesh knitwear exporters fetched 1.831 billion U.S dollars, registering 52.05 percent growth over that in the corresponding period of previous fiscal year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2008)