Bangladesh's Corporate World

Bangladesh, as a nation, is heavily reliant on its garments industry. Over the past two decades, the garments industry has become a major foreign currency earning source. It is presently a $20 billion industry and a source of employment for approximately 3.2 million workers. Undeniably, the garments industry proved its worth and credibility . Buyers from across the world, mainly from the developed countries, chose Bangladesh for several reasons; the main being availability of cheap labor. Among others includes the fact that Bangladesh is a place where there are no strict rules to follow or that the rules are not enforced properly. However, the recent incidents including the building collapse in Saver damaged the industry’s image like a hurricane and are anticipated to have a long term impact. There are reports suggesting that many major garments buyers including GAP, Wal-Mart and Primark are considering reevaluating their contracts with the Bangladeshi garments manufacturers,...

It is in fact quite amazing that despite the global shocks, natural crisis, and local political instability, Bangladesh was able to maintain around 6 percent growth rate over the past few years. The GDP growth of Bangladesh was 3percent in the 1970s, and increased by 1 percent on average every decade. The credit goes to government's efforts to control population growth, which has significantly declined over the years. The per capita GDP growth rate was 1.7 percentage points on average every decade. Over the last three years, approximately 15 million people came out of absolute poverty due to the acceleration in the growth rate. Openness in the economy, financial deepening, macroeconomic stability and population control are some of the major reason Bangladesh experienced a steady growth over the years. Bangladesh now targets to enter the middle-income country strata by 2021. A recent report by World Bank said that in order to attain the middle-income status, remittances and GDP gro...