2024 has been a year of immense turmoil for Bangladesh and its ready-made garment sector. But comprehensive reform is underway, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association’s new leadership.
At Sourcing Journal’s annual Fall Summit, Bitopi Group managing director and BGMEA support committee member Miran Ali said the trade group, which represents thousands of factories, is “going to reform everything” — and it’s not stopping at the RMG industry.
“We are changing the constitution, the judiciary, the civil service, the police, every aspect of life in Bangladesh will be reformed and will be representative of the constituents that it’s supposed to represent,” he said.
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Student protests erupted across Bangladesh in June over demands for changes to quotas in government jobs, and that civil unrest led to a heavy-handed response from law enforcement and the country’s military. Hundreds of individuals lost their lives in these skirmishes, and demonstrations boiled over into a total uprising against the Bangladeshi government, culminating in the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August.
“We needed this change. We needed to get freedom,” Ali said. “Most of the population of Bangladesh is below the age of 24; these are people who have grown up…living under the oppressive dictatorship of the previous regime for 17 years.”
“What we have right now in Bangladesh is a post-revolutionary society we are building — we are actually building a new country,” he added.
A leadership shake-up at BGMEA (led by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Commerce, which ordered the group to dissolve its board) led to the placement of Md. Anwar Hossain, vice chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau, as administrator in October. He was tasked with initiating a free, fair election within 120 days to solidify the power transfer.
“Mr. Anwar is here as a symbol of the fact that the interim government of Bangladesh is fully in support of our industry, and the fact that…industry and government will work together in making the necessary reforms,” Ali said.
Hossain took the stage at the Sourcing Journal fall summit to speak to the road map for the months ahead.
“As administrator, my role is to collaborate and facilitate a smooth transition to new leadership that can actually complete the reform agenda we are facing right now,” he said. He is relying on 10 advisers from the industry and discussions with brands throughout the country to inform a strategy that will prioritize the country’s RMG sector, which accounts for 82 percent of Bangladesh exports and “a huge contribution to our economy.”
Despite headwinds like production delays from curfews and unrest, ongoing garment worker demonstrations and a monsoon that caused shipping disruptions over the summer, Bangladesh’s RMG sector is still in growth mode, according to Hossain.
The industry saw 23-percent year-over-year export growth between October 2023 and October 2024, he said. During the period between July and October 2023, RMG accounted for $11.5 billion in exports. One year later, that figure grew by nearly $1.3 billion to $12.8 billion during the same three-month period.
Ali said that while Bangladesh is just beginning to emerge from the upset of the past several months, he is confident in a return to normalcy.
“One of the challenges is that when you have a repressed society that suddenly gets complete freedom, there will be a period of disruption,” he said. “I would say, considering the national trauma that our country has gone through over July and August and the last 17 years, we are remarkably stable.”
“As a matter of fact, the unrest that has happened is scattered, not a generalized problem. It is a specific issue related to individual factories,” he added.
With a new labor adviser issuing a stern warning to factories that don’t settle their worker dues, Ali said he believes that “any institution, any company where workers are not being paid — the government will start taking action.”
There “will be a transition” in attitudes surrounding the treatment of workers under the new government regime, and while it won’t put an immediate end to unrest at every factory, new BGMEA leadership and a new relationship with the government could lead to a “period of stability” not seen in recent years, he said.
With domestic labor force issues resolved, the BGMEA will be able to focus on advancing the industry on the global stage, he added. Decarbonization projects for the fashion industry are taking shape with the buy-in of brands and international organizations.
In September, BGMEA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with global nonprofit Cascale to promote socially and environmentally responsible practices within the apparel sector. Meanwhile, brands like Bestseller, H&M Group, Gap Inc. and Mango this year signed onto The Future Supplier Initiative, which aims to help suppliers in Bangladesh decarbonize their operations through transitions to low-carbon technologies and renewable energy.
“Until today, everything that has happened in the supply chain, whether it’s minimum wages or working hours or anything else, it’s usually top-down. Customers would tell us ‘I want this and I want that,’ but you never really hear suppliers speaking back to you,” Ali said.
“Bangladesh is now transitioning away from the way we were when we used to hear what you had to tell us, and now we have something to say to you as well,” he added. “We will be demanding a different behavior. We will be demanding a more responsible behavior.”