FROM PAGE B1

In the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, Bangladesh’s terry towel and linen exports fell 14 percent as manufacturers grappled with weak global demand and rising business costs.

M Shahadat Hossain Sohel, president of Bangladesh Terry Towel and Linen Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said the sector was being squeezed by multiple crises, including the lingering impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, conflicts across the Middle East and an inflation-driven slowdown in demand in key markets such as Europe and the United States.

He said many small and medium-sized factories had shut down since the pandemic, while larger firms were surviving largely on bank financing rather than profits.

Sohel also blamed soaring production costs, unreliable gas and power supplies, and a difficult business environment for eroding competitiveness.

According to him, without stronger policy support, similar to incentives offered by India to its textile sector, Bangladesh could lose further ground in global markets.

Abdur Razzaque, chairman of Research and Policy Integration for Development (RAPID), said it was still too early to conclude whether Bangladesh’s exports would end the fiscal year in negative territory, as one month remained.

“However, export growth is unlikely to improve significantly,” he said.

Razzaque said the prolonged weakness in exports was already affecting investment and the labour market. If exports fail to recover quickly, the adverse effects could persist for a longer period.

Citing data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), he said the country had been facing labour market challenges for the past two years, making a near-term recovery unlikely.

As Bangladesh’s exports are heavily concentrated in the readymade garment sector, any slowdown in apparel shipments has ripple effects across the broader economy, including backward linkage industries, said the economist.