Bangladesh textile industry

The textile and clothing industries provide the single source of growth in Bangladesh's rapidly developing economy. Exports of textiles and garments are the principal source of foreign exchange earnings. By 2002 exports of textiles, clothing, and ready-made garments (RMG) accounted for 77% of Bangladesh’s total merchandise exports. By 2013, about 4 million people, mostly women, worked in Bangladesh's $19 billion-a-year industry, export-oriented ready-made garment (RMG) industry. Bangladesh is second only to China, the world's second-largest apparel exporter of western brands. Sixty percent of the export contracts of western brands are with European buyers and about forty percent with American buyers. Only 5% of textile factories are owned by foreign investors, with most of the production being controlled by local investors.

Bangladesh's textile industry has been part of the trade versus aid debate. The encouragement of the garment industry of Bangladesh as an open trade regime is argued to be a much more effective form of assistance than foreign aid. Tools such as quotas through the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) and Everything but Arms (EBA) and the US 2009 Tariff Relief Assistance in the global clothing market have benefited entrepreneurs in Bangladesh's ready-made garments (RMG) industry. In 2012 the textile industry accounted for 45% of all industrial employment in the country yet only contributed 5% of the Bangladesh's total national income.

After several building fires and collapses, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of workers, the Bangladeshi textile industry and its buyers have faced criticism. Many are concerned with possible worker safety violations and are working to have the government increase safety standards. The role of women is important in the debate as some argue that the textile industry has been an important means of economic security for women while others focus on the fact that women are disproportionately textile workers and thus are disproportionately victims of such accidents. Measures have been taken to ensure better worker conditions, but many still argue that more can be done.

From 1947 to 1971 the textile industry, like most industries in East Pakistan, were largely owned by West Pakistanis. During that period, in the 1960s, local Bengali entrepreneurs had set up their own large textile and jute factories. Following its separation from East Pakistan the newly formed Bangladesh lost access to both capital and technical expertise.

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