"Bangladeshi frozen vegetables are already being exported to the UK market. With growing demand, it can be a major commodity for the country but it is losing competitiveness due to high freight cost," said Moinul Islam Chowdhury, managing director of Eurasia Food Processing Ltd.

The company can't increase export volume despite having huge demand, he mentioned.

Bangladeshi exporters have to pay $4800 to $5800 a container as freight charge for exporting their products while its competitors pay only $1000 to the same markets, exporters said adding that India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore are dominating the global market.

Eurasia Food Processing Ltd is a Bangladesh-UK joint venture company, exporting frozen vegetables to the UK and the US since 1993 and the company has so far exported 369.58 tones frozen vegetables to these markets.

Growers can not recover their production cost in many cases and huge quantity of vegetables are wasted during peak season every year due to lack of processing plants and marketing facilities, exporters said.

"If the government takes initiative to cut freight charges, it is possible to increase our export volume from existing 10 percent in the UK market," said Md Akmal Hossain, managing director of Hortex Foundation, which promotes fruits and vegetable exports to the global market.

"We have to make the exporters aware of pre- and post-harvest processing to develop the sector," he recommended

"We also need to concentrate more on export diversification in the post-MFA era and processed vegetables can help in this regard. We need to establish more laboratories and cold storage to boost frozen vegetable export," Akmal felt.

Hortex Foundation has selected three local companies -- Kuliarchar Cold Storage Ltd in Kishoreganj, SAR & Company in Chittagong and Frozen Fish and Frog Leg Ltd in Khulna -- to promote frozen vegetables export.

The vegetables Bangladesh is now exporting include hyacinth bean seed, stem amaranth, olive, spinach, teasel gourd, jack fruit seed, pointed gourd, okra, red skin potato, bitter gourd, ridge gourd, plantain and radish.

"Demands for frozen vegetables in the world market are increasing day by day because of its 'ready to cook' quality," observed Mujibul Haque, proprietor of Elite Express, another company that exports frozen vegetables.

Fresh vegetable exporters usually can not maintain the lead-time and quality because of limited cargo space, which encourages the entrepreneurs to export processed agri-products, Mujibul said adding that setting up of international standard testing laboratories can increase export to a great extent.

Bangladesh's income from both fresh and frozen vegetable exports has increased to $46 million from $13 million in the last three years and the growth was 84 percent in the 2004-05 fiscal year.