Three challenges need to be faced urgently for the sustainable development of the garment industry in the country and to survive in the current competitive market.
These are decarbonisation, coping with post-transition from Least Developed Countries (LDC) list and impact of fourth industrial revolution or automation of technology on production systems.
The speakers said these things at a round table meeting titled ‘Weaving 2030: Policy-making discussion’ at a hotel in Gulshan in the capital on Saturday.
The country’s business consultancy organization Light Castle Partners and Policy Exchange Bangladesh jointly organized this round table meeting.
Jahedul Amin, co-founder and director of Light Castle Partners, presented the main article. The round table meeting was organized to highlight the actions and recommendations to face multi-faceted challenges in the apparel industry to survive in the LDC transition and competitive market.
The meeting was chaired by the Chairman of Policy Exchange Bangladesh. M. Masroor Riaz. Aini Islam, Director of Program Development Department of Asia Foundation gave the opening speech.
According to the original article, the biggest crisis will come after transitioning from the list of least developed countries (LDCs) in 2026.
The crisis is exacerbated by the loss of other trade benefits including the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP) due to LDCs, rising labor wages, fears of international buyers and importers shifting to countries producing garments at a lower cost than Bangladesh, and non-compliance by some garment industry owners. will increase
It also said that according to the 2023 data of the Export Development Bureau, Bangladesh currently ranks second as a single country in the world in terms of exports of ready-made garments.
According to the same source, Bangladesh exported garments worth USD 47 billion till February 2023-2024 fiscal year. According to Bangladesh Bank, the contribution of GDP in this sector is 10.35 percent in the fiscal year 2023.
It employs more than 40 lakh garment workers. 60 percent of whom are women. As a result, if the problems are not dealt with now, this industry as well as the overall economy may be negatively affected.