Bangladesh has now 44 diplomatic missions abroad covering around 124 countries. Of them, 25 have not been able to achieve their export targets during the July-October period in the current financial year (2006-07), while the rest performed well achieving their goals.

Six missions showed extraordinary performance in enhancing export during the first four months of the fiscal.

Yangon mission posted a 222.86 per cent export growth over the same period of the previous fiscal, Tripoli 120.37 percent, Pretoria 113.61 percent, Hanoi 102.71 percent, Ankara 97.53 percent and Beijing 93.53 percent.

The missions that failed to achieve the export target are Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Cairo, Singapore, Islamabad, Bangkok, Canberra, Dubai, Riyadh, Colombo, Amman, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Tashkent, Doha, Kathmandu, Berlin, Rome, New Delhi, Manama, Rabat, Manila, Nairobi and Brunei.

The Ministry of Commerce earlier set a monthly basis target to accelerate growth in export, sources said.

In the face of poor export performance of the Bangladeshi missions, the government decided last year to hold chiefs of the missions instead of their economic and commercial councilors accountable to achieve export targets.

The missions' economic councilors were instructed to report through the ambassadors or high commissioners so that their performances in this regard can be scrutinised.

According to the sources, most of these commercial or economic councilors, who are not trained enough to promote country's export products to the prospective buyers, had been sent to different missions abroad on political persuasion.

The commerce ministry last year failed to call back some of these officials because of political pressures, although it reached such a decision as those were deemed disqualified to discharge the jobs they had been assigned for, the sources lamented.

The credit for achievement of the respective export targets during the same period goes to the missions of Washington, London, Brussels, The Hague, Stockholm, Yangon, Tripoli, Madrid, Jakarta, Pretoria, Beijing, Ottawa, Ankara, Hanoi, Muscat, Tehran, Seoul, Moscow and Thimpu.

The government earlier was used to set the export target on sectoral basis after consulting with the private sector entrepreneurs. But, in recent years, the country-wise export targets have been set and the foreign missions asked to take necessary measures to attain the targets.

During the four-month period, seven out of 16 commercial wings of the Bangladeshi missions also lagged behind the goals, but six commercial wings clocked a little growth over the export during the time the previous fiscal, the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) said.