It should come as no surprise that Bangladesh’s RMG sector, the veritable engine upon which the economy has relied, would eventually start losing its steam. Indeed, according to a recent report by QIMA, Bangladesh has failed to capture a larger share of increased global demand for apparel in 2024 while China is outpacing Bangladesh in terms of receiving export orders.
The report elucidated that global demand for textile and apparel inspections and audits from garment manufacturing countries, including Bangladesh, had increased over 20% in the first quarter of 2024 while China was experiencing something of a resurgence in popularity among apparel brands with direct competitors in Asia and beyond were simply keeping pace.
There is no denying the important role that the RMG sector has played in the overall development of the nation, but the industry has always been susceptible to shocks given the highly probable emergence of competition. To that end, it is absolutely imperative that we take steps to introduce some much needed diversity in our export basket.
While the government has in the past shown that it recognizes our stagnant import basket is a glaring shortcoming for us, it has nonetheless shown very little in the way of extending actual support to businesspeople and entrepreneurs. We have promising industries -- such as IT and light engineering -- which are in desperate need of state support, which the administration is well aware of, but awareness alone will not result in success.
With two-thirds of respondents globally planning to maintain or increase business volumes with Chinese RMG suppliers in 2024, according to the same report mentioned above, the writing is on the wall: RMG is going to hit a wall.
Bangladesh has immense goals in both the near and long terms, achieving those goals will require a healthy economy. We cannot ensure that with an export basket that refuses to change.