Bangladesh’s garment and apparel exports in the fiscal year 2015-16 were up 10.21 per cent over the previous year. Growth was mainly attributed to political calmness during the year, increased productivity, entrepreneurs’ resilience and improvement of workers’ safety standards in factories.

The country is the world’s second largest readymade garment exporter with advantages like a low labor cost, favorable business climate, and well-established transport facility. The readymade garment sector is the country’s largest source for export earnings. Readymade garments exported from Bangladesh represent around six per cent of the global clothing market.

Fashion brands like Zara, H&M, Gap and Levi’s are already manufacturing and importing clothes from Bangladesh. The industry employs around four million citizens and is one industry where women are in high numbers, almost 90 per cent of the workforce.

Efforts are being made to further boost and promote the country’s readymade garment sector by facilitating a healthier business environment, training more skilled workers, improving social compliance status and improving coordination among the manufacturers, exporters and importers. Bangladesh exports around $30 billion of readymade garments a year. The vision is to achieve $50 billion of readymade garment exports by 2021.