Product diversification, technology upgradation, skill development, and apparel diplomacy along with environmental sustainability are the key areas that the Bangladesh readymade garment industry is now looking for, said BGMEA president Faruque Hassan.
“Bangladesh is working on to scale up its capabilities and retain competitiveness in the post-LDC era,” he said.
“Bangladesh will need to prepare well to overcome the challenges and harvest fruits of potential benefits from the graduation,” he remarked while addressing the participants of the National Defence Course – 2023.
The discussion was held on “RMG sector in Bangladesh economy – prospects and challenges after becoming a middle-income country” at the National Defence College in Dhaka on Tuesday.
In his speech as a guest speaker, Faruque Hassan said the immediate impact of LDC graduation on Bangladesh’s
industry, particularly the export-oriented industries is the possible changes in the market access.
“Bangladesh being an LDC member avails duty-free market access to major markets including the EU, Canada, Japan, Australia, and to a few Asian countries like China, India, South Korea, etc.”
He observed, “Bangladesh will need to improve its diplomatic efficiency to face economic challenges in the post graduation period and to tackle the challenges from loss of preferential market access.”
“From now on we need to think about bilateral and multilateral trading arrangements including FTA, PTA, RCEP etc. with our potential trade partner countries,” BGMEA chief said.
Developing the capacity of manufacturing diversified high-value products, especially non-cotton items, alongside enhancing capabilities in product-process-technology innovation, reskilling, and up-skilling of people are the key priorities where the industry was putting a lot of emphasis to overcome the challenges and maintain the growth momentum, the BGMEA President added.
