Bangladesh’s readymade garments (RMG) industry is primarily labour-intensive, utilising simple technology compared to other high-tech industries. Fundamentally, the value chain components for Bangladesh’s RMG industry are straightforward. From the perspective of forward participation in the value chain, Bangladesh’s RMG industry essentially adds value to commodities ordered by foreign buyers. Concurrently, to meet foreign buyers’ demands, the RMG industry manufacturers acquire the raw materials locally or participate in backward linkages by importing the raw materials from abroad.
These raw materials include primarily fabrics and accessories such as buttons and collars. While accessories can be obtained mainly from domestic suppliers, fabrics or cloths are mostly imported from China, Indonesia, or India (Nuruzzaman & Haque, 2009). However, the RMG industry in Bangladesh is more involved in the backward linkage of the global value chain (GVC) than forward participation and, therefore, holds a downstream position in the GVC (Hossain & Baars, 2022).
Author: Fahmida Khatun, Syed Yusuf Saadat and Afrin Mahbub
Publication Period: April 2024