Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed has urged producers in the agricultural sector to aim for a bigger chunk of Bangladesh’s export income, which is likely to hit $44 billion for the current 2018-19 fiscal, rising to $60 billion by 2020-2021, reports UNB .

“Bangladesh has a good base in production of agricultural products. Bangladesh is the 3rd largest in vegetable farming, 4th in fish farming, and 7th in potato cultivation,” he noted. Yet export earnings from the sector lag behind for the country, that in recent times has become more-or-less self-sufficient in food.

Referring to data from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), the minister noted that in the last two completed fiscals, Bangladesh earned $673.7m in 2017-18 and $553.2m in 2016-17 from agriculture exports.

The commerce minister was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the 6th Bapa Foodpro International Expo 2018 held at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Dhaka on Thuer

Bapa and Extreme Exhibition and Event Solution Ltd jointly organized the expo to create a bridge to the latest international technology and products used in the sector to incorporate modern methods of farming with higher yields, better storage, etc.