Bangladesh’s readymade garment exports fell over six per cent in the past five months of the fiscal year. The garment sector’s contribution to the GDP is only 11 per cent, clearly indicating very little value addition. Reasons behind the garment sector’s lower growth include economic recession around the world and pressure from the nation’s currency.

Bangladesh has a target of exporting apparel products worth $50 billion by 2021 but that target looks unattainable because of low valuation and declining global trade. The second biggest apparel exporter globally, the Bangladesh garment manufacturing sector is not having the best of times lately. In the last seven months, 59 garment factories have gone out of business while around 25,900 workers have lost their jobs. Most garment factories are small and medium enterprises and they fail to maintain compliance strictly and pay their workers under the new wage structure. While the country’s apparel exports have taken a hit in recent months those of its competitors are on the rise. The readymade garment sector accounts for more than 80 per cent of the country’s annual export earnings. But the country has lost its market share in global apparel exports by 0.1 percentage point to 6.4 per cent.