Refayet Ullah Mirdha

Factories in industrial belts need 15 PSI (pounds per square inch) of gas pressure, but are getting a maximum of 3 PSI

Shipments hit $4.07 billion in May, 23.75% lower than the monthly target of $5.33 billion

The Consumer Price Index grew by an average of 9.73 percent in the first 11 months of the current financial year, which was 8.64 percent during the identical period a year prior, data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics showed.

Investment in manmade fibres in Bangladesh is low as the country has mainly focused on the trade and production of cotton fibre garments over the past five decades.

Having become the world’s second largest source for apparel items after China, Bangladesh is now pushing for the top spot by adding more value-added products to its export basket.

The tariff at the largest airport in Bangladesh is so high that buyers stay competitive even when their goods travel a distance of nearly 1,900 kilometres in trucks from the country to Delhi via Benapole and Petrapole.

Three rounds of meetings of the joint study group were held last year to pave the way for last week’s formal launch of the negotiation.

Shafiur Rahman, regional operations manager of G-Star in Bangladesh, needs to send 6,146 pieces of denim trousers weighing 4,404 kilogrammes from a Gazipur-based garment factory to Amsterdam of the Netherlands.

Tech giants like Amazon and Alibaba are generating millions of dollars in revenue from Bangladesh selling garments made locally in the absence of a homegrown digital marketplace capable of engaging in international trade.

The government’s target of earning $110 billion from exports by the fiscal year of 2026-27 would be difficult to attain because of the persisting challenges in the global and local economies, economists and businesspeople said.

The government’s cash incentive against export receipts has soared over the years although many sectors could not make their mark in the global market, bringing in limited results for the government’s diversification initiative.

The government plans a new export promotion fund as an alternative to direct cash incentives for export-oriented sectors to help the country face challenges resulting from its graduation to a developing nation in 2026.

Owing to a chaotic and volatile exchange rate, local exporters were desperate for the introduction of a floating exchange rate so they could draw more money and be more competitive.

The exporters have already welcomed the central bank's move to devaluate the local currency, which they have long been waiting for.

A European retailer asking not to be named said he has already increased the amount of clothes his company sources from Bangladesh as the country’s increasing production capacity was helping to give them more confidence.

In the January-March period of the current year, garment shipments to American markets declined by 17.68 percent to $1.75 billion, according to data from the Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA), a body under the American Commerce Department.

China (together with Hong Kong) continues to be the largest origin economy for counterfeit and pirated goods, accounting for more than 85 percent of global seizures of counterfeit goods from 2017 to 2019.

So far, any loss of productivity or major casualty has been averted while no incident related to the thin presence of workers or missing shipment deadlines has been recorded.

The Parliament’s vote came on the 11th anniversary of the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza building, which killed 1,138 garment workers and injured more than 2,000 others.

Although there has been a fivefold increase in number of unions in 11 years since the country's deadliest industrial incident, most are failing to live up to expectations