Refayet Ullah Mirdha

It is a historic event for any citizen when their beloved country makes the graduation from a least-developed country (LDC) to a developing country thanks to the unanimous recognition of its economic performance by a UN body.

Officially, Bangladesh is still the second-largest garment exporter worldwide and it is expected that the country will be able to retain its second position globally because of the regular flow of work orders with the reopening of the stores in the western world.

The government is targeting to increase tea production by about 46 per cent to 140 million kilograms by 2025 in a bid to meet the growing domestic demand for the beverage, said Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi.

The sale of yarn and fabrics of export-oriented spinning and weaving mills is on the rise thanks to a higher inflow of work orders from international clothing retailers.

Seasonal traders of rawhide have been left disappointed by this year’s sales as the price for untanned leather has remained low for two consecutive years now.

That very low prices of rawhides will be able to keep prices of leather goods such as footwear and bags from going abnormally high in the domestic markets is not necessarily true, finds research of the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC).

News of garment work order cancellations and holdups and deferred payments became commonplace when pandemic struck.

Cotton imports witnessed a slump for the first time in over a decade last fiscal year due to a fall in demand from local mills amid a stunning drop in apparel work orders for the global coronavirus pandemic.

The government will allow construction of effluent treatment plants (ETPs) by individual tanneries inside the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate (STIE) in a bid to expedite the process of obtaining much-needed certification from the Leather Working Group (LWG) to boost export of leather goods.

It appears garment manufacturers are at last breathing a sigh of relief as work orders for apparel items from international retailers are coming back with the reopening of their stores in the European and American markets.

The government was hoping there would be no recurrence of the waste of rawhide last Eid-ul-Azha.

July, it seems, will go down the annals as the month in which the Bangladesh economy lifted the pall of gloom brought on by the global coronavirus pandemic.

The rawhide business at the retail level across the country faces a major blow this year as well because of the low demand despite government's efforts.

The economy, it seems, is in a sort of limbo, neither fully on recess nor roaring ahead.

Almost all the garment and knitwear factories have paid their workers Eid festival bonus and salaries for July yesterday, in a refreshing departure from previous years, where the days leading up the religious festivals are almost always marred by demonstrations.

The owners of many companies in Bangladesh’s 42 various industrial, manufacturing and service sectors failed to provide their workers with festival bonuses for Eid-ul-Azha by yesterday, the stipulated deadline to disburse the annual allowance.

The government yesterday gave yet another stimulus package worth Tk 3,000 crore for the export-oriented industries to help them provide wages and salaries to their workers for July.

Risk looms large of a recurrence of last year’s discarding of rawhides en masse during Eid-ul-Azha in Bangladesh this year for a low injection of funds in the sector and a lack of preparedness of both the government and traders.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to bring surprises, this time around in the form of booming sales for spinners, weavers and finishers who serve the local markets.

Pandemic-hit apparel exporters have sought continuation of low-cost loans from the government for three more months to help them pay wages to workers as the sector is struggling to stay afloat.