Some youths working with local NGO APRP (Advancement Programme for Rootless People) in Kajoli village in Sreepur upazila in Magura district deserve credit for this.

The youths collect juice during winter, bottle it through a scientific process and export those to UK and USA, India and some Middle East countries.

The bottled juice is called Kajolir Kherjur Rasa. It tastes like fresh date juice

Arong and Nandan of Dhaka buy the product from APRP and market it at home and abroad.

Owners of date trees and juice collectors are now vibrant with new hopes as date juice is exported.

APRP officials said, about four years back they started experiment to preserve and market date juice. They set up a laboratory at Kajoli Barzar, about two kilometres east of Sreepur upazila headquarters.

"After four years effort, our dream came true when BSTI (Bangladesh Standard Testing Institute) approved it for export," said Boshir Ahmed, president of APRP.

During a visit to the laboratory, director of the organisation Ayub Hossain Molla said, "The juice can be preserved for three years as it is boiled at a certain temperature and then bottled with some preservatives which are not harmful for human health".

A one 300 ml bottle of juice is sold at Tk 50 and a one litre bottle at Tk 150.

Though boiled, it tastes like fresh date juice. It can be used not only in making cake and porridge but also as jelly during taking breakfast, they said.

Bashir Ahmed said they have already exported 1500 bottles to USA and another over 2000 to UK, Canada, India and Dubai.

In Bangladesh, Arong and Nandan are wholesalers of the item, he said.