Our Strength

Pandemic pressure and shifts in global markets have brought stiff challenges to the garment industry in Bangladesh. The sector will need to innovate, upgrade, and diversify, investing in flexibility, sustainability, worker welfare, and infrastructure.

 

Bangladesh celebrates 50 years of independence, global attention is focused on the remarkable economic and social progress the country has achieved in recent decades. Even with the setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Asian nation is on track to become a middle-income country within the next few years.

 

The ready-made garment (RMG) industry is a mainstay of this economic success story: Bangladesh is today one of the world’s largest garment exporters, with the RMG sector accounting for 84 percent of Bangladesh’s exports. This comes on the back of the sector’s rapid growth and modernization over the past decade—as well as the strides it has made in improving conditions for the country’s approximately four million garment workers.

However, the pandemic has stalled the sector’s progress at a crucial moment, just as global shifts in fashion sourcing threaten Bangladesh’s position in industry supply chains.

Ten years ago, in 2011, we published our report, Bangladesh’s Ready-made Garments Landscape: The Challenge of Growth, for which we had collaborated with the Bangladesh German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. With this article we want to take stock of Bangladesh’s RMG sector—examining its growth to date, highlighting the big challenges it has navigated since then, and suggesting the transformative steps that are needed if the sector is to maintain and renew its economic vibrancy in the decade ahead. To support this stocktaking we have conducted a series of interviews with sourcing executives of leading global fashion brands and retailers.