DHAKA, Sept 27: Thirty of the 44 Bangladesh missions abroad have missed their export targets in July, the first month of the current fiscal year, according to the Export Promotion Bureau report.

Moreover, half of the 30 missions also failed to match their performance compared to the corresponding month of the last fiscal year, according to the report submitted to the commerce ministry on Sunday.

Among the missions in the worst-performed category are New Delhi, Beijing, Paris, Singapore, Tehran, Thimphu, Tripoli, Nairobi, Islamabad, Canberra, Jakarta, Pretoria, Yangon, Amman, Tashkent and Seoul.

The mission in New Delhi achieved only $9.47 million of export earnings, two-thirds of the target fixed for the month while the mission in Beijing achieved only $3.06 million export earnings which is only half of the target.

Bangladesh bears the brunt of huge trade imbalance with these two countries which have multi-billion-dollar export markets in Bangladesh.

The mission in Paris could meet 80 per cent of its target with earnings of $52.61 million, but it was less than the earnings of the same period of the last fiscal.

Performances of the missions in Myanmar and the three South Asian countries of Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan were categorized as ‘bad’ as the earnings from those countries were $0.21 million, $0.14 million, $0.07 million and $2.59 million respectively, which were far behind the target.

For the mission in Singapore, the target was fixed at $8 million, but it could achieve only 15 per cent.

The best performing missions, according to the EPB report, were Dubai, Washington, Berlin, Manila and Bangkok.

Strategic export target of the Washington mission for the month was set at $254.61 million but the mission performed overwhelmingly achieving exports worth $286.91 million which is 12.69 per cent higher than the target and a 130 per cent rise over the earnings of the same period of the previous financial year.

The missions in Berlin, Madrid and The Hague mobilized export earnings of $167.43 million, $40.01 million and $38.63 million respectively, which were higher than the set targets.

Though the export amount is tiny, the Dubai mission performed the best — the country’s exports under the mission’s territory stood at $7.11 million against July’s strategic target of $2.36 million and the July 2004 figure of $2.04 million.

Of the 44 missions, commercial wings are in operations under 16 missions and the EPB report showed that 11 commercial wings including missions in Paris, Moscow and Kuala Lumpur could not achieve their targets.

Though many of the missions in important export markets failed to perform well in the first month of the current fiscal, the higher earnings in some places prevented a debacle as a whole, the report showed.