Economic resilience commendable

As the world was coming out from the COVID-19 induced economic headwinds, 2022 became another unprecedented year for the globe and Bangladesh. We experienced supply line gridlocks, first due to unprecedented global consumer demand resurgence as COVID eased and later due to the Russia-Ukraine war leading to exceptional commodity cost inflation. Bangladesh had additional challenges of heavy flash floods in the north and sharp currency devaluation during the second half of the year. But despite the headwinds, the country's economic resilience has been commendable, and we have been able to manoeuvre the country reasonably well.

This year for FMCG industry has also been equally challenging as we have experienced unparalleled global commodity cost escalation, and despite significant price increases, not all could be passed on to consumers, as every price increase led to a lower consumption and hence volume decline for the business. Any decline in volume leads to a higher cost of production, as volume needs to be apportioned over the existing fixed cost, additionally, we also incur a higher cost of customer re-acquisition. Throughout the year, given the volatility, the FMCG sector has seen significant erosion of consumption, leading to volume decline and drop in profitability for the industry.

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Despite the challenging year, it does not define the full potential of Bangladesh. Bangladesh provides immense headroom for growth, given that the per capita consumption is half of India and one quarter of the Philippines. 2022 has been a year that has helped us to build muscles to anticipate change and build the capability to be a future fit in FMCG industry. We believe we are better equipped to grow with a growing Bangladesh.