Bangladesh wants the United States to provide duty-free cotton imports for its readymade garment industry.

The US is the world’s largest cotton exporting country. Globally, Bangladesh is the second biggest readymade garment exporter and imports a good amount of cotton annually from the US. And the US also happens to be the largest export market for garments made in Bangladesh. Annually, Bangladesh needs around nine million bales of cotton for apparel manufacturing. Whereas Bangladesh produces only 1.50 lakh bales of cotton annually, which is only 1.6 per cent of the total demand.

Bangladesh is trying to increase cotton production. But even if cotton production doubles, Bangladesh will have to import an enormous amount of cotton from abroad. So the country feels that if the US were to provide duty-free benefits for cotton imports, its apparel industry will be benefitted greatly.In marketing year 2021-22 Bangladesh's domestic raw cotton consumption was estimated at 8.8 million bales. The textile industry is composed of yarn, fabric, and dyeing-printing-finishing mills and they have about 15 million bales of cotton consumption capacity.

Raw cotton is the second most imported product in Bangladesh. The country imports raw cotton primarily from India, the United States, Benin, Brazil and Spain.