It's been a long journey for Bangladesh since US secretary of state Henry Kissinger described the country at the moment of its birth in 1971 as a 'basket case'. In 1972, its GDP was $6.2 billion. Today, it's nearing the half-trillion-dollar mark.
Though credit for social development often goes to large civil society organisations, Bangladesh's transformation has been largely driven by the ready-made garments (RMG) sector. From 1974, the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) set quotas on garment exports from Asia's newly industrialising countries into the US market. Entrepreneurs from quota-restricted countries like South Korea began looking at options for 'quota hopping'.
Daewoo was an early entrant in Bangladesh and set up a joint venture with Desh Garments in 1977. 130 supervisors and managers were trained at a state-of-the-art plant in South Korea. Within a year, 115 of the 130 left Desh to work at newly formed RMG companies in Bangladesh.
Foreign investment helped the new sector come into being. It continued to flourish under the global regime. As the quota regime ended in 2005, a race to capture apparel share trades began. Between 2004 and 2014, Bangladesh, India and China increased apparel exports threefold. However, post-2014, this entirely changed:
China started losing share of garment exports with rising labour costs.
Bangladesh doubled exports from $22 billion to $42 billion.
Indian exports remained stagnant at about $16 billion.
Read more at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-commentary/stitching-it-the-bangladesh-way/articleshow/99362268.cms
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