The country’s merchandise exports saw 23.24 percent year-on-year rise in May, propelled by better apparel shipments, according to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data released on Thursday.

The export earnings stood at US$3.83 billion last month, up from $3.11 billion Bangladesh bagged in the same period a year earlier.

 The overall export earnings also surpassed the set target by 18.34 per cent, the data shows.

During the July-May period, ready-made garments (RMG) exports, the mainstay of exports, surged 34.87 percent to $38.52 billion.

Of the apparel exports, $20.98 billion came from knitwear shipment, up by 36.61 percent year-on-year, while woven garment fetched $17.54 billion with a rise of 32.85 percent.

Comparatively new item home textiles registered a growth of 41.3 percent to $1.46 billion.

Among other notable sectors, during the same period, agricultural products registered a growth of 21.51 percent to $1.10 billion.

Since September last to April this year, the country's single-month export earnings had been surpassing the $4 billion mark.

Last month’s exports also missed the target set for the month slightly by 1.64 percent.

Apparel industry leaders attributed the slight fall in RMG exports because to Eid vacation which shrank time of doing business.

However, they claimed the export performance still good compared with that of last year. But they feared that it might fall in the coming months as the order placement is going slow.

They said now the industry is coming back to the normal situation after enjoying overflow of orders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The industry insiders admitted that there are certain challenges the industry is facing at present because of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict that has shot up raw material prices apart from energy price.

After the lockdown people used to shop more which is one of the reasons behind this unusual growth in previous months, but currently that scenario has started to come to the normal level, they said.