Exports grew a modest 3.92 percent year-on-year to $28.72 billion in July-April, riding on shipments of knitwear, home textiles, leather products and jute.

Month-wise, it also rose nearly 3.49 percent to $2.78 billion in April compared to the same month a year ago, according to the Export Promotion Bureau. However, the earnings fell 4.25 percent short of the target set at almost $30 billion for the 10-month period.

April's earnings were also 3.82 percent shy of hitting the monthly $2.89 billion target.

Shipments of knitwear, jute and leather products and leather footwear helped the country maintain the positive export growth amid protracted slowdown in the European Union and uncertainty in the US following the presidential elections.

Knitwear exports went up by 4.81 percent to $11.25 billion in July-April.

Exports of raw jute, jute yarn and twine and sacks and bags all went up 25.22 percent, 12.91 percent and 15.17 percent respectively. Furniture sales also grew 10.36 percent.

Leather products shipments rose 19.08 percent to $373.31 million while that of leather footwear went up by 14.05 percent to 431.65 million in July-April period.

Home textiles registered a growth of 6.58 percent to fetch $664.8 million in the first 10 months of the ongoing fiscal year.

On the other hand, overseas sales for woven garments decreased by 0.14 percent to $11.88 billion during the period.

Exports of frozen fish fell by 10.46 percent, shrimps 3.02 percent, terry towel 9.34 percent, leather 6.34 percent and bicycle 11.05 percent.

Exports are an important driver of growth for Bangladesh, led by the garment industry, which accounted for 82 percent of total goods exports in 2015-16, a 2-percentage point increase from FY15.

Steady export growth in recent years has supported an increase in foreign exchange reserves to $32.22 billion as of March this year which was about $8 billion in FY2011.

Bangladesh shipped goods worth $34.26 billion in the last fiscal year and the government has aimed to earn $37 billion in the current fiscal year ending next month.

At the current pace of growth, Bangladesh could beat last fiscal year's total exports, but may find it difficult to hit the full-year target for 2016-17, which is 8 percent higher than the receipts in 2015-16.