research paper about bangladesh

Development Research Center

OUR RESEARCH

“Identifying a sector with a scope of large employment is appealing from poverty reduction point of view. But, if wrongly targeted, it might have worse consequences.”

Mohammad A. Razzaque, Economic Advisor, Commonwealth Secretariat In: Dynamic Products in South-South Trade: Issues for Policy Makers (16 October 2007)

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Bangladesh's Development Strategy

Evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of some alternative development strategies.

Makes suggestions on the optimal mix of alternative development strategies.

Our Working Paper Series

The BDRWPS is a peer-reviewed working paper series of the Bangladesh Development Research Center (BDRC)

Aid & Debt

Analyzes the implications of alternative sources and levels of development finance and their implications on debt sustainability and sustainable development in Bangladesh.

Climate Change

Includes four areas/topics:

climate change adaptation policies,

climate change vulnerability,

the impact of development on CO2 emissions, and

an annotated bibliography on climate change.

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BDRC Research: Aid and Debt

Outputs (in reverse chronological order):

Concessional Financing for Development in Bangladesh, Journal of Bangladesh Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (published in October 2019), pp. 51–65 (with M. Faizul Islam and Farah Tasneem).

"Aid, Debt, and Development in Bangladesh: Synergies or Contradictions", published in: Munir Quddus and Farida Khan (eds.) Bangladesh Economy in the 21st Century: Selected Papers from the 2008-09 Conferences at Harvard University (Dhaka: University Press Ltd., 2011), Chapter 10 (by Bernhard G. Gunter, A. F. M. Ataur Rahman, and Jesmin Rahman).

“Aid, Debt, and Development in Bangladesh: Synergies or Contradictions" published in Journal of Bangladesh Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2010), pp. 23-43 (by Bernhard G. Gunter; A. F. M. Ataur Rahman; and Jesmin Rahman).

Arti c le in The Daily Star (one of Bangladesh's leading English newspapers) on August 26, 2008

Presentation (pdf) and Summary (pdf) of UNDP's Policy Dialogue Nr. 38, made on August 19, 2008 at UNDP Bangladesh in Dhaka .

Research paper authored jointly by Bernhard G. Gunter; A. F. M. Ataur Rahman; and Jesmin Rahman on "Aid, Debt, and Development in Bangladesh: Synergies or Contradictions", P resentation made by Dr. Bernhard Gunter at the Conference on "Bangladesh in the 21st Century" at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (June 13-14, 2008) on aid, debt and development.

Research paper authored jointly by Bernhard G. Gunter and A. F. M. Ataur Rahman on "Analyzing Bangladesh’s Debt Sustainability Using SimSIP Debt", published as Bangladesh Development Research Working Paper Series (BDRWPS) , No. 2 (June).

BDRC Feature: Bangladesh deserves more aid (June 2008)

Tackling the COVID-19 pandemic: The Bangladesh perspective

Md. taimur islam.

1 Department of Pathobiology

Anup Kumar Talukder

2 Department of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Reproductive Health

Md. Nurealam Siddiqui

3 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Tofazzal Islam

4 Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur, Bangladesh

An outbreak of a COVID-19 pandemic disease, caused by a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has posed a serious threat to global human health. Bangladesh has also come under the attack of this viral disease. Here, we aimed to describe the responses of Bangladesh to tackle the COVID-19, particularly on how Bangladesh is dealing with this novel viral disease with its limited resources. The first case of a COVID-19 patient was detected in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020. Since then, a total of 263,503 peoples are officially reported as COVID-19 infected with 3,471 deaths until August 11, 2020. To combat the COVID-19, the government has taken various steps viz. diagnosis of the suspected cases, quarantine of doubted people and isolation of infected patients, local or regional lockdown, closure of all government and private offices, increase public awareness and enforce social distancing, etc . Moreover, to address the socio-economic situations, the government announced several financial stimulus packages of about USD 11.90 billion. However, the government got 3 months since the disease was first reported in China, but the country failed in making proper strategies including contact tracing, introducing antibody/antigen-based rapid detection kit, and also failed to make multi-disciplinary team to combat this disease. Further, limited testing facilities and inadequate treatment service along with public unawareness are the major challenges for Bangladesh to tackle this situation effectively. Along with the government, personal awareness and assistance of non-government organizations, private organizations, researchers, doctors, industrialists, and international organizations are firmly required to mitigate this highly contagious disease.

Significance for public health

A novel coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2, causes COVID-19 disease. This has emerged as a serious threat to human health and economy of the whole world. Bangladesh is one of the densely populated countries in the world, which also has come under attack of COVID-19. The first case of COVID-19 patient was detected in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020. Since then, a total of 30,205 peoples are officially reported as COVID-19 infected with 432 deaths. This lethal COVID- 19 drastically hit the economy of Bangladesh, with 170 million of inhabitants. The local and regional lockdown has already suspended almost all economic activities. However, limited health care service facilities of the country along with public unawareness are the major problems for Bangladesh to tackle this situation effectively. Of note, a large number of low-income workers, day-laborers need to go outside to earn daily income for their livelihood that causes mass transmission. Moreover, many hospitals, some doctors, nurses and other health officials are reluctant to provide treatment to COVID-19 patients and also non- COVID-19 patients. This report described the responses of Bangladesh to tackle the dreadful COVID-19 and discussed prevailing challenges, and how to mitigate this highly contagious disease with limited resources.

Introduction

A cluster of patients of pneumonia with unknown etiology was first reported in the Wuhan city of Hubei Province in China in December 2019. 1-3 The initial symptoms were fever, cough, dyspnea, myalgia or fatigue, headache, hemoptysis, diarrhea and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). 4 , 5 After a few days, Chinese health authorities confirmed that those cases were associated with infection by a novel coronavirus. 3 Eventually, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) has identified the causative agent from throat swab samples on January 7, 2020, and named the pathogen as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). 6 SARSCoV- 2 is classified under the genus Betacoronavirus of the family Coronaviridae under the order Nidovirales . It is a non-segmented, enveloped, positive sense RNA virus. 7 On the other side, the World Health Organization (WHO) named this disease as a coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). 6

The WHO has declared this ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020. 6 According to WHO, the countries with vulnerable health systems are at higher risk. As of August 11, 2020, the disease has infected at least 20417,377 people and has resulted in at least 742,311 deaths globally. 8 The emergency committee of WHO has announced that the spread of COVID-19 could be discontinued by trace, early detection, isolation, and prompt treatment. 6 To date, more than 213 countries or territories have confirmed the occurrence of COVID-19 including Bangladesh. 8 Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries due to high population density (ca. 170 million people in 147,570 km 2 ), poor health care systems, poverty, and the weak economy. In recent years, Bangladesh’s economy has been growing well with a GDP growth rate of more than 7.5%, however, about 20% of the population is poor. Nevertheless, because of the rapid spread of the COVID-19, Bangladesh’s economy has already started taking a big hit. The nationwide shutdown has already suspended almost all economic activities except agriculture which forced thousands of employments at risk. International trade orders, especially in ready-made garments industries, are being greatly canceled. While the richest, developed and the most powerful countries of the world have been struggling to fight against the COVID-19, failing to provide the necessary support and medical treatment to their patients. Although increase in agricultural sectors in last four decades is phenomenal and the country is nearly food secured, the ongoing COVID-19 poses a serious threat to the supply chain, marketing and production in agriculture. On the other hand, Bangladesh has only 5.3 doctors per 10,000 people, 0.3 nurses per 1,000 people, 0.87 hospital beds per 1,000 people, 0.72 ICU beds and 1.1 ventilators per 100,000 people. The country has relatively very limited health service facilities in comparison to other COVID-19 affected countries that might be one of the possible reasons for comparatively lower recovery rate (57.67%) of COVID- 19 patients in Bangladesh. 9 Bangladesh has never faced a situation like this before. In fact, health care systems of Bangladesh were not prepared to face this pandemic outbreak. COVID-19 is not only a public health concern or medical issue but also it requires a multidisciplinary planning and approach. Molecular diagnostic procedure against any infectious disease is very limited in Bangladesh. Therefore, tackling this newly introduced disease requires comprehensive planning and approaches including the medical, virological and epidemiological interventions. It is now a worrying question how is Bangladesh responding and tackling the pandemic COVID-19 with its relatively poor health management systems. Several opinion papers have been published on different countries regarding the outbreak of COVID-19. 10 , 11 The present perspective report aimed to focus how is a resource-poor country Bangladesh tackling this fearsome disease by adopting steps and stimulus packages.

Situation of COVID-19 in Bangladesh

On March 8, 2020, three cases of pandemic COVID-19 were confirmed by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) for the first time in Bangladesh. 12 Till August 11, 2020, a total of 263,503 COVID-19 patients were officially reported with 3,471 deaths in Bangladesh. 8 , 13 COVID-19 patients were found in all 64 districts of the country; however, Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Chattogram have been mostly affected ( Figure 1 ). 13 Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh, and one of the fastest growing cities of the world. It supports more than 15 million people in less than 325 square kilometres of area that makes it one of the most densely populated megacities. 14 Moreover, most of the industries of the country such as textiles, tanneries, fertilizer plants, pharmaceuticals companies, cement factories, pulp and paper industries, and most of the government and non-government offices are located in these major cities, which might be one of the possible reasons for higher prevalence of this disease in these areas.

The number of tests per day by real-time RT-PCR is still very low compared to the demand. Possibility for detection of positive cases will be increased when more people will be tested for COVID-19. The lower number of positive cases and deaths might be attributed to the lower test of samples in comparison to other developed countries ( Figure 2A ). These results indicate that a large number of infected patients are remained undetected, which accelerate transmission of the disease in the society. Notably, about 20.46% people have been found positive for COVID-19 from total number of people tested (detection rate) in Bangladesh, which is the second highest in comparison to that in both drastically affected countries and neighbour countries ( Figure 2B ). USA, Brazil, Russia, Italy, Spain, India, and Pakistan recorded 7.91%, 23.19%, 2.90%, 3.43%, 5%, 9.21% and 13.17% COVID-19 positive people, respectively in comparison to the total number of tests conducted ( Figure 2B ). 8

Bangladesh experienced a sharp rising of positive cases these days, as the country started conducting doing more tests since the fourth week of first detection. But Bangladesh recorded lower recovery rate in comparison to the neighbour country. As of August 11, 2020, the percentage of recovered patients (recovery rate) in Bangladesh is 57.67% whereas death rate is 1.32% ( Figure 3A ). However, situation is better in terms of recovery of COVID-19 patients in other countries, for example, Brazil, Russia, Italy, India and Pakistan have been witnessing 70.53%, 78.34%, 80.59%, 70.35%, and 91.60% recovery rate, respectively. 8 The lower recovery rate might be attributed partly to the limited health service facilities in Bangladesh which has already been reported in the previous study. 9 Again, a large number of population of Bangladesh faces double burden of diseases: non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, stroke, malnutrition, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer, and communicable diseases like tuberculosis, tetanus, malaria, measles, rubella, leprosy and so on. 15

In Bangladesh, young professionals, and working people have so far been mostly infected with COVID-19. Specifically, IEDCR reported that 68% of COVID-19 positive cases were observed in people aged between 21 to 50 years ( Figure 3B ). On the other side, infected patients aged >50 years constituted 21% of the total infected people. The children and youths aged <20 years comprised 11% of total infected cases ( Figure 3B ). 13 There is a similarity of the age distribution of COVID-19 positive patients between Bangladesh and India, but differs with that of the USA and Italy where it has been broken out more drastically. In India, 75.09% of the confirmed patients were less than 50 years old. The workingage population was infected mostly so far in India. On the other hand, only 27.2% people aged between 19 to 50 years have been infected with COVID-19 in Italy. In the USA, COVID-19 infected people, aged over 50 years old, accounted for 50.63%. 16

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COVID-19 infected patient’s location map of Bangladesh. People from 64 districts have already been infected with COVID-19.

The reason(s) why young and working people have been mostly affected by COVID-19 in Bangladesh is not known. However, young people may be little bit careless regarding COVID-19 and working-age people need to go outside to work for maintaining their daily life, which might contribute for getting infection in those people.

Responses of Bangladesh to tackle COVID-19

Almost every country is following aggressive non-therapeutic measures to control the spread of pandemic COVID-19. Bangladesh also has followed the same way. To combat COVID- 19, the government of Bangladesh has taken some major steps such as i) the formation of a national COVID-19 response committee headed by the Minister for Health; ii) cancellation of the grand inauguration ceremony of the father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birth centenary celebration programs; iii) closure of all government and private offices; iv) closure of all educational institutions of the country v) ban of all public gathering and transportation services; vi) suspension of all domestic and international flights; vii) deployment of the law enforcement agencies including army and police to ensure that people maintain social distancing and to motivate the people; viii) cancellation of celebration of Bangla New Year on April 14; ix) cancellation of celebration program of the of the 50 th Independence Day; x) operating the ‘Rice for TK. 10 per KG (approx. 12 cents/kg rice)’ program for the needy people throughout the country; and xi) extension of social safety net to the poor and distressed people of the society. An addition, civil society, philanthropists and richer people of the society are generously supporting the poor community of the society by offering foods and money. 17-21 The government has also declared several stimulus packages of the total amount of approximately USD 11.90 billion for the business industries including small and medium enterprises, cottage industries; for doctors, nurses, homeless people and social safety, and for the agricultural sector to ensure food and nutritional security of the country ( Table 1 ). 20 , 22-24 The diagnostic approach of COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh is of total instability and lack of coordination, and therefore proper solution was not found in last five months since outbreak of this disease. The health care management system of Bangladesh is not perfect, which has lots of weaknesses and problems. When a health emergency of an immense proportion like that of COVID-19 pandemic gripped the country, it seems that the health system management has lost its way. Most of the time, the health sector policymakers were talking about all kind of preparations being already taken to tackle the pandemic COVID-19. However, the lack of coordination among various departments of the government and the absence of proper direction are very evident on the ground. 25 Consequently, the Government has failed to restrict the travelers to enter into the country from the COVID-19 affected countries on time. 10 While the government of Bangladesh needed to establish proper measures to identify people infected with COVID-19, various departments, including those at various airports, were completely disorganized. Only three thermal scanners were mounted in Dhaka international airports, and one in Sylhet and another one in Chittagong international airports to screen a large number of inbound passengers. 26 No disinfection activities were performed and no samples were collected from passenger’s body for performing confirmatory diagnostic tests.

The financial packages announced by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh to tackle the socio-economic losses caused by the lethal COVID-19.

Initially, the government of Bangladesh has declared the enforcement of lockdown for 10 days. After completing the initial lockdown, thousands of service holders, garments workers and other factory workers started heading back from home residences (mostly villages) to major cities, e.g ., Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gajipur, and Chattogram, ignoring the risk of spreading of COVID-19. Later, the government declared extensions of the nationwide lockdown and these people coming from different areas of the country started to head back to their home residences. 10 Notably, when most of the people, including the owners of shops and shopping malls were not in favor of reopening their business, the government permitted ‘limited’ restart of business. 25 Government also allowed migration of thousands of people during Eid festival from COVID-19 hotspots like Dhaka to all over the countries, without maintaining social distance. Collectively, the government has failed to maintain proper lockdown due to the lack of coordination between different authorities and groups. 10 Some corrupt officials of the health ministry embezzled money in the name of buying personal protection equipment (PPE) and standard masks. 27 Of note, more than a dozen of Bangladeshi health service providers were arrested on charges of selling thousands of fake COVID-19 negative certificates. 28

Major challenges of COVID-19 in Bangladesh

Though the government has taken some essential steps, many challenges are still remained to be addressed to effectively tackle this fearsome disease. The major challenges for addressing the COVID-19 in Bangladesh are briefly described as follows.

A limited number of tests

As there is no effective treatment against COVID-19, this is very important to follow test, trace and treatment policies to tackle this highly contagious disease. It is crucial to diagnose the disease at the earliest stage so that immediate contact tracing, isolation of the patient and quarantine of the person(s), who have the possibility to come in contact with the patient, could be ensured. Less than ten thousand daily test capacity is very low in a country of 170 million of population. Until August 11, 2020, Bangladesh has tested only 7,812 samples per million people whereas Russia has tested 212,414 samples ( Figure 2A ). 8 Thus, it is believed that most of the people having COVID-19 were left undetected due to the lower number of tests. But after increasing the number of tests, the number of positive cases is growing high very rapidly in Bangladesh. An extremely limited number of tests is increasing the chances of leaving a higher number of COVID-19 cases undetected in Bangladesh. It is highly recommended to increase the number of tests for suspected and asymptomatic people as soon as possible. Besides this, all identified and suspected cases must be quarantined and treatment should be provided if needed. The government must need to include all research institutes, universities, and other organizations that have the laboratory facility to increase the number of tests for diagnosing COVID-19. Rapid test protocol is yet to be used in Bangladesh for diagnostic purpose of COVID-19. Thus, Bangladesh urgently needs to introduce effective rapid tests such as antigen/antibody-based test protocols to satisfy the skyrocketing demand not only for diagnosis of COVID-19 but also for seroprevalence study to tackle this socially spread fatal disease in a sustainable manner. To tackle this situation, convenient, effective, and specific rapid test methods should be urgently introduced.

Lack of safety equipment

There is inadequate supply of personal protection equipment (PPE), standard masks, and hand gloves to the health service providers, which is one of the major constraints in providing treatment facilities. A significant lack of safety equipment is fueling the concern for frontline health service providers like doctors and nurses. Some corrupt officials of health ministry were involved in importing low quality protective equipments. 27 Some factories were also involved in producing cheap and poor quality antiseptic liquids, face masks, hand gloves and PPE all over Bangladesh. These low quality healthcare products are now posing great risk to public health amid the ongoing pandemic COVID-19. 29 A large number of doctors, nurses, and persons of law enforcing agencies have already diagnosed as COVID-19 patients in the country. Of note, until August 11, 2020, approximately 92 doctors have been died of this disease in Bangladesh. 30 Collectively, the limitation of PPE and inadequate test facilities of real-time RT-PCR are the big challenges for Bangladesh. The government has to make available more test facilities and import high quality of these protective gears immediately.

Lack of skilled human resources

The use of real-time RT-PCR-based-assay to diagnose COVID-19 requires skilled human resources and sophisticated laboratory facilities. To avoid contamination, false-negative results and risks of biological hazards, the government is not allowing all hospitals, and organizations to perform the test. A large number of graduates have been producing annually in the field of biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology, biotechnology etc. from different universities in Bangladesh. Those graduates can be specially trained to carry out the diagnosis of COVID-19. However, government has failed in making strategy to use these skilled graduates. A national panel of virologists, biotechnologists and molecular biologists should be formed, trained and employed for the diagnosis of COVID-19.

Limited treatment facilities

The diagnosis and treatment facilities of COVID-19 in Bangladesh are very limited. Bangladesh has eight hospital beds per 10,000 people, whereas the USA has 29 beds per 10,000 people and China has 42. Moreover, the government health department of Bangladesh has only 432 ICU beds in total, only 110 of which are placed outside the capital city, Dhaka. The private healthcare sector has additional 737 ICU beds and this is for a population of 170 million. 9 , 31 The government has to prepare special hospitals as soon as possible with a sufficient number of ICU beds. Currently, almost all private hospitals and healthcare systems are not accepting any COVID-19 patients. The government should take necessary steps to engage these private organizations to the national mission of combating the COVID-19.

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A) Trends in diagnosis of COVID-19 positive cases with number of people tested. Until August 11, 2020, Bangladesh has completed 7,812 tests per million people with 1,598 positive cases per million people. On the other hand, USA, Russia, Italy, Spain and Pakistan has completed large number of test and got increased number of positive cases. The data show that possibility for detection of positive cases is increased when more people are tested for COVID-19. B) The proportion of COVID-19 positive patients detected from total number of people tested in different countries including Bangladesh. The results show that the detection rate of COVID-19 positive cases is the second highest in Bangladesh.

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A) The recovery and death rate of COVID-19 patients in some selected countries including Bangladesh. The result reveals that the recovery rate in Bangladesh is lower than that compared to other countries, even though death rate is very low. B) Age-wise distribution of COVID- 19 patients in Bangladesh. The result shows that people aged between 21-50 years are likely to have COVID-19 infection under Bangladesh situation.

In addition to the above-mentioned challenges, the country does not have enough ventilator machines to provide respiratory support to critical COVID-19 patients. Right now, only 1,769 ventilators are available in Bangladesh that means an average of one ventilator available for every 93,273 persons. 9 Also, most of the intensive care beds and ventilators of the country are installed at hospitals in major cities, mostly in Dhaka, which means that people from the remote areas will not be able to get those facilities when they will fall in critical condition. Along with the government, other industrialists and civil societies should to come forward to arrange ICU beds, mechanical ventilators and to import these instruments at the earliest period of time. The government should declare this importation as tax-free.

The private sector of health service department of Bangladesh usually treat a large number of patients everyday both in their indoor and outdoor sections. However, they stopped to deliver their all medical services not only for COVID-19 patients but also for non COVID-19 patients. Of note, some large and leading private hospitals also kept themselves away from the ongoing health emergency. 25 Recently, some private entities have come forward amid the ongoing health emergency. Bashundhara group, country’s leading private organization has allowed to use the Bashundhara Convention Centre to build a 2000-unit hospital which will also have 71 Intensive Care Units (ICU). Likewise, Akij Group has also decided to set up a 301-bed hospital in the Tejgaon area.

Limited number of health service provider

Another big problem in Bangladesh is the fewer number of doctors and nurses in comparison to other countries. Bangladesh has 5 doctors on average per 10,000 people, whereas this number in Italy is 41 doctors. 24 Moreover, many hospitals, some doctors, nurses and other health officials were showing unwillingness to provide treatment for the COVID-19 patients which is unethical and unprofessional from hospital authorities and the doctors as well. They are scared of getting infected as they do not have sufficient protective equipment. In this situation, secondary and tertiary waves of the infection may result in major outbreak which could lead to a huge disaster for the country. To encourage health professionals, the government has declared incentives and health insurance for the doctor, nurses and other frontline workers involved in fighting against the COVID-19. To increase the number of health workers, the government should arrange a quick training for the community health workers who can provide support COVID-19 patients in the remote areas. Recently, the Health Ministry of Bangladesh has appointed 2,000 doctors and 6,000 nurses to fight against the pandemic COVID-19. 32

Community transmission

The COVID-19 is an extremely contagious disease. When the exact source of infection is not clearly identified, it is called community transmission. Many positive cases have been reported already where the infected person neither came from abroad nor any family members have returned from abroad, which suggests that community transmission has taken place. The number of new infected patients and deaths are increasing geometrically. Print, electronic and social media have published a series of the report about suspicious deaths of patients with COVID-19 symptoms. Some of the death cases were recorded at the COVID-19 isolation centers at hospitals at the district level. In due courses, others were denied for providing treatment, even though no tests were performed to confirm the contagion. Test facilities for the COVID-19 diagnosis were mostly centralized to only the IEDCR in the capital city Dhaka for a long time, although patients with suspicious symptoms of COVID-19 were reported throughout the country. However, the government is now arranging the COVID-19 test facilities laboratory at district level, mainly based on the government medical colleges and some research institutes in Bangladesh. Obviously, the number of the test capacities must be increased across the country. In addition, number of test laboratories should be made available in different areas of the country and all the suspected cases of COVID-19 need to be tested immediately. Microbiology, virology, molecular biology, biotechnology and biochemistry laboratories in the universities and medical colleges across the country should be transformed quickly into COVID-19 diagnostic laboratory to confirm the contagion.

Lack of research fund

The universities of Bangladesh have inadequate fund for molecular research, which is reflected on the lower amount of scientific papers published every year in the international open access scientific journals. Due to inadequate facilities including limited modern laboratory equipments, Bangladeshi researchers could not work intensively on this important issue of COVID-19. It is important to note that the developed countries have been investing billions of dollars for research on COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, Bangladeshi researchers depend only on limited resources. Therefore, it is essential to allocate adequate funds from government and non-government sources to perform more research and study about the ongoing COVID-19 and other fatal diseases in Bangladesh.

Large number of vulnerable and disadvantaged people

In Bangladesh, 20% people are poor. Some of them live from hand to mouth. Due to lockdown and staying home, they are now in a vulnerable situation. Special attention has to be paid to protect these vulnerable groups or individuals. They are basically elder people and the disadvantaged, including day-laborers, patients with comorbidities who have a higher risk of getting infected. The elder people are more susceptible because of their low immunity to fight against the disease and therefore, they need more intensive care-based treatment which would require an increased number of ventilators. Some disadvantaged groups, day-laborers are also vulnerable and may cause mass transmission as they need to go outside to earn their daily food items. Again, working-aged people need to go outside to work for maintaining their daily life, which might contribute to getting the infection in those people. Through providing essential support such as daily needs, food, and relief to these groups of disadvantaged people at this crucial time may reduce their sufferings and also reduce their chance of getting infected and infecting others. At this point, the government has to monitor the safety net program very strictly otherwise, there is a chance of misuse of those relief items by immoral local leaders.

Lack of public awareness

As specific drugs and vaccines have not yet been released to prevent or treat COVID-19, strict lockdown of vulnerable places, maintaining social distancing and practicing of cough etiquettes such as by covering coughs and sneezes with disposable tissues or clean clothes by every person are critical to tackle this highly contagious disease. Maintaining social distancing is a very difficult task in a highly populated country like Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, there is no educational program or subjects on public awareness at any level of education including elementary level. However, to combat the dreadful COVID-19, the government has opened a new cell to raise public awareness and to prevent propaganda among people about the fatal effect of COVID-19. 33 Mass media including television media, the Community radios and newspaper are broadcasting several program daily about COVID-19 in different formats like- news, Public Service Announcement (PSA), radio spots, radio talks, magazine, drama, jingles, interview and expert opinions etc. 34 Furthermore, campaigns for increasing public awareness explaining the causes, symptoms, and effects of COVID-19 are being carried out across social media. 35 But many people are not so much conscious about the fatal effect of COVID-19. Young people may be a little bit careless regarding COVID-19. This is why, they are infected at higher rate in Bangladesh. Along with the government’s step, every person should try himself to keep distancing with others, washing hands, not to go outside without any important reason. Special measures should be taken by the print and electronic media by engaging celebrities to promote public awareness to the fatality of the COVID-19 and social distancing.

Large number of Rohingya refugees

A big burden of Bangladesh is to save more than one million Rohingya refugees from the rapidly spreading COVID-19, who are living in the confined conditions in Cox’s Bazar district. 36 The number of ventilators in Cox’s Bazar is very limited where around 3.3 million people are living. 36 If severe community transfer will happen there, many lives will be lost. The number of tests, ventilators and special attention regarding this issue has to be increased at the earliest period of time.

Effects on economy of the country

Bangladesh economy has been improving with GDP growth rate 6-8% in last decade. The present outbreak of COVID-19 poses a serious threat to the growing economy of the country in various ways. Due to sudden disruption in textile and garments manufacturing industries, trades and business of deferent sectors, tourism, supply and marketing channels of the agricultural produces, agricultural production, and unemployment of a huge number of people, the economy of the country is under a serious threat. The government has already declared some stimulus packages for the industrial sector to provide financial support and to boost up the threatened economy. 20 , 22-24

Effects on agricultural sector

Bangladesh is an agrarian country. Although agriculture contributes 14% to the GDP, nearly 70% of the population directly or indirectly depends on agriculture. The COVID-19 interrupted badly the supply chain and marketing of perishable vegetables, fruits, poultry and dairy products. As a result, both producers and consumers are affected. Bangladesh immediate needs to get supports from the deployed army and police forces to reinstate these supply chain and marketing channels. Currently, local boro rice harvesting season in low lying areas ( haor in Bangla) were going on which were under the threat of flash flood. The haor areas are a big basket for rice crops in the country. But due to the outbreak of COVID-19, there was a possible chance of the shortage of laborers in the haor area. The government has made special arrangement to allow labors from other districts to move to the haor areas for rice harvesting. Meanwhile, the government has arranged a good number of the harvester and other facilities to harvest the boro rice before the flash flood inundate the areas. To give good price to the farmers, government should purchase rice, wheat and other food crops and store them in for future food security. After the outbreak of COVID-19 in Bangladesh, some people started to disseminate false propaganda through social networks that coronavirus causing COVID-19 in humans may transmit from the livestock and poultry and their products (meat, milk, and egg). In fact, this meat, milk, and egg are essential to humans for boosting up their immunity which might play pivotal roles in fighting against COVID-19. Due to the disruption of supply chain and change in the mind of consumers, the price of milk, meat, and eggs has drastically been decreased. It should be noted that approximately 20% of the people of Bangladesh directly or indirectly rely on the livestock and poultry sectors for their livelihoods. The government needs to increase public awareness through television, social media, print, and electronic media to eat more meat, fish, and eggs for becoming people healthy which is very important to fight against the COVID-19. Recently, the government has announced a new stimulus package of approximately USD 589 million to provide financial support only to the farmers and some other stimulus packages for boosting crop production. 22 , 23 The distribution of this stimulus funds to the right farmers in the right time is obviously a challenging task. The government has also declared to arrange health checkups, sanitary equipment, vehicles for transportation, resident for the farmers who are willing to go to haor area from harvesting of the boro rice crop. This is definitely a right decision and implementation of this decision would help the country to ensure food security.

The overall current situation of Bangladesh illustrated in above sections clearly reflects that Bangladesh has to overcome huge challenges to tackle the fatal COVID-19 epidemic in the country. Although the effects of environment on dissemination and severity of COVID-19 infection is not clear yet, the current rate of infection and death cases in a tropical delta Bangladesh is low compared to any temperate European and American countries. Further studies on the effect of temperature, humidity, sunlight and other environmental and demographic factors should be investigated to understand the nature of infections.

The COVID-19 poses a serious health and economic problem in a resource-poor highly dense populated country, Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh has taken many initiatives such as diagnosis of suspected cases, quarantine of doubted people and isolation of infected patients, local or regional lockdown, increasing public awareness and social distancing to combat the COVID- 19. Furthermore, the government has announced many financial stimulus packages for industries, agricultural production, and daily workers. However, lack of facilities for testing required number of suspected samples, scarcity of diagnostic kits, insufficient PPE, ICU, and ventilators in the hospitals, limited number of health workers along with public unawareness are the major challenges for this developing nation for combating the COVID-19. Therefore, the government should take the necessary actions to address these challenges and ensure public health. At the same time, the government also needs to use rapid detection kit for diagnostic purpose and import PPE, ventilators, and ICU beds on an urgent basis to fight against lethal COVID-19. Furthermore, the government should order mandatory lockdown in vulnerable places. The government also needs to allocate sufficient research funds to conduct research on COVID-19. Moreover, it is needed to circulate the news and instruction continuously regarding COVID-19 to increase public awareness. Along with the government, people also must need to maintain social distancing, personal awareness, personal hygiene, self-quarantine condition and to obey the rules of the country and WHO as well.

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Letter to the Editor
Open access
Published: 23 January 2023

Health research publications of Bangladesh—an appeal for policy reform and long-term investment

Mohammad Jahid Hasan 1 ,
Md. Fahmid Uddin Khondoker 2 ,
Monjur Rahman 1 ,
Aaysha Cader 3 , 4 &
Hasnat Sujon 1 , 5 , 6

The Egyptian Journal of Internal Medicine volume 35 , Article number: 6 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Bangladesh has made huge strides in economic growth and healthcare delivery since its independence 50 years ago, although significant lags exist in all domains of health. One of the key domains of a vibrant health policy is health research. Health research in Bangladesh is getting growing attention among the stakeholders; however, in the case of one of the key indicators—Bangladesh-origin scientific journal—the achievement is quite frustrating, where the presence of internationally indexed journals is next to zero. The Journal of Statistical Research , commenced in 1970, published by the then University of Dacca, is the first contemporary Bangladesh-origin journal [ 1 ]. Immediately after independence, in 1972, Bangladesh Medical Journal—the first medical journal of the country—commenced publication which is continued to date [ 1 ]. As of 2022, the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BM&DC) recognizes 156 journals published by different medical colleges, universities, and professional societies of Bangladesh [ 2 ]; 145 of them are listed on Bangladesh Journals Online (BanglaJOL), a virtual platform that maintains online publication of Bangladeshi journals, which has archived 22,509 articles since 2007 [ 3 ]. However, there is a decline in the number of new journals listed in databases, with an additional decline in the overall listing rate as well (Fig. 1 ). Currently, 21 Bangladeshi medical journals are indexed in the Web of Science [ 4 ], 15 in the Scopus database [ 5 ], and only one in MEDLINE [ 1 ]. Twenty-six Bangladesh-origin journals had initially been listed in PubMed/MEDLINE; however, only Mymensingh Medical Journal has retained its indexed status (Fig. 1 ) [ 1 ]. Furthermore, there are no Q1/Q2 journals according to the Scopus journal ranking (SJR) [ 5 ].

Trends in the generation of new scientific journals of Bangladeshi origin over time. A Number of listed journals in PubMed per decade. B Number of listed journals per year in BanglaJOL

No Bangladeshi journal uses a contemporary online-based submission platform, with submissions mainly received via emails. There are systematic delays in the regular update of journal websites; most journals have no retrievable individualized web links to the specific article. As such, articles may not show on regular searches, leading to few or no citations. Thus, very few local journals have achieved an impact factor greater than 1 [ 4 , 5 ]. In fact, the only MEDLINE-indexed Bangladeshi medical journal has no impact factor to date.

A vicious cycle of events contributes to this low performance of medical publishing. There is little incentive for conducting research in the medical community. At the policy level, there is a near total blindness to publication as evidenced by the promotion rules of the government of Bangladesh for health cadres, which gave very insignificant weightage to publication [ 6 ]. On the other hand, professionals who conduct research refrain from submitting even locally pertinent research to local journals as they are not indexed, opting for international journals instead. Local journals are hence left with no option but to publish poor-quality articles, which impede the journal’s progress.

Bangladesh still has a long way to go in terms of achieving excellence in research, as evidenced by the strikingly few research institutions dedicated to scientific research, a scarcity of research funds, and an insufficient number of good-quality journals and publications. The lack of skilled and motivated manpower to run an efficient editorial process is a major challenge. Journal activities are often undertaken entirely by only a few members of the editorial board, the majority of whom provide a voluntary service, with no protected research time, leading to an inability to commit the time and effort necessary to produce high-impact deliverables. Absent recognition on reviewer-crediting systems such as Publons results in a limited number of qualified reviewers. No formal training exists to train young researchers and clinicians to acquaint themselves with the editorial process and equip themselves with the skills necessary to take up positions in the future. The hardship of scientific publication is further amplified by the lack of attention to the problem by the government and relevant academic institutions and scientific societies. Lack of funding remains an impediment to the standardization and development progress of journals. Financial investments are necessary to improve scientific publication processes, such as the adoption of modern submission portals, technical support for updating websites, and protected time for editorial board members. Additionally, the measurement of social media metrics or altmetrics should be instituted. Strategic steps to motivate and train young scientists, to produce high-quality research, are therefore currently warranted.

A collaborative effort by academic physicians, the government, and relevant local stakeholders, with the help of the international community, is therefore crucial to achieve sustainable development of scientific publications in Bangladesh.

Availability of data and materials

Available based on reasonable request to the corresponding author.

NLM catalogue. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/?term=Bangladesh%5Bpl%5D+AND+nlmcatalog+pubmed%5Bsubset%5D . Last accessed: May 12, 2021.

Bangladesh Medical & Dental Council (BM&DC). List of medical and dental journals. Retrieved from https://www.bmdc.org.bd/about-journal . Last accessed: Aug 23, 2022.

Bangladesh Journal Online. Bangladesh Journals Online. Retrieved from https://www.banglajol.info/index.php/index/about . Last accessed: Aug 23, 2022.

Master journal list, Web of Science. Retrieved from: https://mjl.clarivate.com/search-results . Last accessed: May 12, 2021.

SJR: SCImago ranking and country ranking. Retrieved from: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=bangladesh . Last accessed: May 25, 2021.

Chowdhury ME, Sujon H, Hassan MR, Sarker AR, Ilias S, Sarker M, Shiblee SI, Ahmad J, Akhter S, Islam MS (2022) Chapter 15: Research in health sector. in 50 years of independence: growth of health sector in Bangladesh, Prothoma, Dhaka

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Acknowledgements

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Tropical Disease and Health Research Center, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Mohammad Jahid Hasan, Monjur Rahman & Hasnat Sujon

Bangladesh Journals Online (BanglaJOL), Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS), Dhaka, Bangladesh

Md. Fahmid Uddin Khondoker

Department of Cardiology, Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital & Research Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Aaysha Cader

University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Hasnat Sujon

Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

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Conceptualization: MJH. Data curation: MJH and MFUK. Writing—original draft preparation: MJH, HS, MR, MFUK, and FAC. Writing—review and editing: MJH, HS, MR, MFUK, and FAC. Final approval: MJH, HS, MR, MFUK, and FAC. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

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Hasan, M.J., Khondoker, M.F.U., Rahman, M. et al. Health research publications of Bangladesh—an appeal for policy reform and long-term investment. Egypt J Intern Med 35 , 6 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43162-023-00190-8

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Research Article

Growth and trend analysis of area, production and yield of rice: A scenario of rice security in Bangladesh

Contributed equally to this work with: Md. Abdullah Al Mamun, Sheikh Arafat Islam Nihad, Md. Abdur Rouf Sarkar

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Agricultural Statistics Division, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur, Bangladesh

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Plant Pathology Division, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur, Bangladesh

Roles Investigation, Resources, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Agricultural Economics Division, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur, Bangladesh

Roles Data curation, Resources

¶ ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Director General, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Gazipur, Bangladesh

Md. Abdullah Al Mamun,
Sheikh Arafat Islam Nihad,
Md. Abdur Rouf Sarkar,
Md. Abdullah Aziz,
Md. Abdul Qayum,
Rokib Ahmed,
Niaz Md Farhat Rahman,
Md. Ismail Hossain,
Md. Shahjahan Kabir

Published: December 10, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128
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Reader Comments

Bangladesh positioned as third rice producing country in the world. In Bangladesh, regional growth and trend in rice production determinants, disparities and similarities of rice production environments are highly desirable. In this study, the secondary time series data of area, production, and yield of rice from 1969–70 to 2019–20 were used to investigate the growth and trend by periodic, regional, seasonal and total basis. Quality checking, trend fitting, and classification analysis were performed by the Durbin-Watson test, Exponential growth model, Cochrane-Orcutt iteration method and clustering method. The production contribution to the national rice production of Boro rice is increasing at 0.97% per year, where Aus and Aman season production contribution significantly decreased by 0.48% and 0.49% per year. Among the regions, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Bogura, Jashore, Rajshahi, and Chattogram contributed the most i.e., 13.9%, 9.8%, 8.6%, 8.6%, 8.2%, and 8.0%, respectively. Nationally, the area of Aus and Aman had a decreasing trend with a -3.63% and -0.16% per year, respectively. But, in the recent period (Period III) increasing trend was observed in the most regions. The Boro cultivation area is increasing with a rate of 3.57% per year during 1984–85 to 2019–20. High yielding variety adoption rate has increased over the period and in recent years it has found 72% for Aus, 73.5% for Aman, and 98.4% for Boro season. As a result, the yield of the Aus, Aman, and Boro seasons has been found increasing growth for most of the regions. We have identified different cluster regions in different seasons, indicating high dissimilarities among the rice production regions in Bangladesh. The region-wise actionable plan should be taken to rapidly adopt new varieties, management technologies and extension activities in lower contributor regions to improve productivity. Cluster-wise, policy strategies should be implemented for top and less contributor regions to ensure rice security of Bangladesh.

Citation: Al Mamun MA, Nihad SAI, Sarkar MAR, Aziz MA, Qayum MA, Ahmed R, et al. (2021) Growth and trend analysis of area, production and yield of rice: A scenario of rice security in Bangladesh. PLoS ONE 16(12): e0261128. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128

Editor: Vassilis G. Aschonitis, Soil and Water Resources Institute ELGO-DIMITRA, GREECE

Received: September 21, 2021; Accepted: November 28, 2021; Published: December 10, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Al Mamun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Globally rice ( Oryza sativa ) is the third major cereal grain [ 1 ] and more than half of the world population consumes its as a staple food [ 2 ]. Broad adaptive capability in different ecosystems and less cultivation risk, several farmers preferred rice cultivation instead of other crops. World population is increasing and it is assumed that 14,886 million tons (MT) of foods need to be produced in 2050 to meet up the food demand [ 3 ]. Worldwide 503.17 MT rice is produced where China produces 29.5% of the total, followed by India (23.8%), Bangladesh (7.0%), Indonesia (6.9%), Vietnam (5.4%), and Thailand (3.7%) [ 4 ].

Rice is also the staple food in Bangladesh and accounting for approximately 78 percent of the country’s total net cropped areas cultivation. The country achieves an autarky to meet up the rice demand for its 169.04 million peoples from 11.55 million hectares of cultivated gross area [ 5 , 6 ]. In Bangladesh, food security is equivalent to rice security [ 5 ]. Rice is cultivated in three seasons namely Aus, Aman and Boro throughout the year. Since independence, rice production has been increased three-fold from approximately 11 MT in 1971–72 to about 36.6 MT in 2019–20 [ 7 ]. This revolution has transformed the country from so called “Bottomless Basket” to a “Full of Food Basket”. After a long period, rice production in Bangladesh has risen significantly after 1990–1991, especially during two periods: 1996–1997 and 2000–01, as well as from 2009–10 to 2013–14. Improved loan distribution policies (credit deposits directly to farmers’ 10 Taka bank accounts), well-organized fertilizer supplies, availability of high-quality seeds by the public and commercial sectors, and technical interventions (e.g. genetic improvements of varieties for favorable and unfavorable ecosystems) make it possible to make Bangladesh as one of the largest contributors of rice in the world [ 5 , 8 ]. Bangladesh recently placed the third position worldwide in rice production, behind China and India, with a production volume of 3.6 crore tonnes [ 1 ].

In reality, the global food production has increased sharply since the Borlaug and Jennings days, keeping pace with an increasingly higher rate of population growth. To cite a country-specific example, we can easily refer to the Bangladesh scenario. Over the past four decades, Bangladesh succeeded in outpacing the population growth rate (1.3%) with its growth in rice output (2.8%) [ 7 ]. To increase or sustain the rice production, it is very important to interpose the rice-based technology in a specific ecosystems or specific locations. Knowledge about region specific rice cultivation scenario will be helpful to disseminate newly release technologies and to take necessary policy for sustainable rice production in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study investigates the growth and trend of area, production and yield of rice in Bangladesh based on periodic, regional, seasonal and total basis.

Materials and methods

Bangladesh is located in the northeastern part of South Asia. The majestic Himalayas stand some distance to the north, where the Bay of Bengal is in the south. These picturesque geographical boundaries frame a low-lying plain of about 1,47,570 square kilometers, criss-crossed by innumerable rivers and streams. The geographical extent of the country is between latitudes 20°34’ and 26°38’, and longitudes 88°01’ and 92°41’. The country’s borders are as follows: in the west, India (West Bengal); in the east, India (Tripura and Assam); in the south, Myanmar; and in the north, India (West Bengal and Meghalaya) [ 9 ]. Fig 1 depicts a conceptual framework of the study.

PPT PowerPoint slide
PNG larger image
TIFF original image

Shapefile republished from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) database ( http://maps.barcapps.gov.bd/index.php ) under a CC BY license, with permission from Computer and GIS unit, BARC, original copyright 2014.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g001

Seasonal and total rice area, production and yield data were used from 1969–72 to 2019–20 at the national level (aggregate) and 1984–85 to 2019–20 at the regional level (disaggregate).

This study is designed based on secondary sources data published by the different issues of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). For the analysis, region-wise time-series data were divided into three periods, Period I (1984–85 to 1995–96); Period II (1996–97 to 2007–08), and Period III (2008–09 to 2019–20). The regional variations were analyzed by considering an unchanging regional base of homogeneous environments. Region-wise scenarios would provide a base to explain the effects of specific conditions as well as agricultural development. In the published issues of the Year Book of Agricultural Statistics, district-wise rice data is available after 2006–07 [ 10 ]. Earlier area, production, and yield of rice data were published according to 23 crop production regions representing the 30 agro-ecological zones (AEZ) of Bangladesh. In this study, we aggregated all data into 14 agricultural regions because the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) conduct their activities according to these regions representing 64 districts of Bangladesh. The distribution of the studied regions is presented in Fig 1 .

Geographic Information System (GIS) map was used to describe the regional variations of area, production, yield and total rice in Bangladesh. However, administrative shape file of Bangladesh was downloaded and used from website of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council. The specific link of the shape file (“Administrative map”) is: http://maps.barcapps.gov.bd/index.php .

The autocorrelation detection, regression model for growth estimations, and cluster analysis techniques were used in this study. In time series regression data, there are numerous causes of auto-correlation. Autocorrelation is often caused by the analyst’s inability to incorporate one or more key predictor variables in the model. The existence of autocorrelation in the errors affects the ordinary least-squares regression method in many ways [ 11 ]. Although regression coefficients are still unbiased, they are no longer considered minimum-variance estimates. When errors are positively autocorrelated, the residual mean square may underestimate the error variance significantly. Autocorrelation may be detected using various statistical techniques. Durbin and Watson [ 12 ] developed a procedure that is frequently utilized worldwide. This test assumes that the errors in the regression model are produced by a first-order autoregressive process observed at evenly spaced time intervals [ 11 ]. A significant Durbin-Watson statistic or a suspicious residual plot suggests that autocorrelated model errors may be present. Table 1 represent the value of Durbin-Watson statistics and found that the data have positive autocorrelation. It may be due to a real-time dependency in error or an ’artificial’ time dependence induced by the absence of one or more key predictor variables.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.t001

Y t = Expected value at t

t = Time index

β 0 = Model intercept

β 1 = Regression coefficient

e = Residual

Y t = Area, production, and yield of rice in year t

a = Model intercept

b = Annual rate of change of rice area, production, and yield

The cluster analysis is then used to find geographical groupings of rice-producing areas with comparable features in terms of production growth and adoption of high-yielding varieties. The variables used in the cluster analysis is independent. Thus, the cluster analysis uses the distinct principal components proposed by Huth and Pokorná [ 15 ]. Applying the most commonly used non-hierarchical clustering technique, K-means clustering [ 16 , 17 ] that classify the 14 agricultural regions into K clusters using Euclidean distance as the linkage method. For all of the analyses, we used Microsoft Excel, ArcGIS 10.3, and R programming tools.

Historical (1969–70 to 2019–20) rice area coverage and production contribution by seasons

The area coverage and production contribution of Aus, Aman and Boro rice have been shown in Fig 2 . We found that historically the area coverage of Boro rice has increased significantly whereas the area of Aus and Aman season significantly decreased from 1969–70 to 2019–20. On the other hand, the production contribution of the Boro rice has increased from 16.1% to 53.7% and the increasing rate is 0.97% per year. Aus season production contribution has significantly decreased from 25.1% in 1969–70 to 7.5% in 2019–20 and the decreased rate was 0.48% per year. Production contribution of the Aman season has been significantly decreased 58.8% to 38.8% with a decreasing rate of 0.49% per year. Among the rice season, Aus production contribution is drastically reduced compared to the Aman season.

National area coverage (a) and production contribution (b) of Aus, Aman and Boro rice during 1969–70 to 2019–20.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g002

Region-wise area and production of rice cultivation in Bangladesh

Thirty-six years (1984–85 to 2019–20) region-wise area and production of rice cultivation in Bangladesh is depicted in Fig 3 . Periodic production contributions follow an increasing trend in Dinajpur, Mymensingh, Rajshahi and Rangamati where a periodic decreasing trend was observed in Chattogram and Cumilla regions ( Fig 3A ). In the recent period, the production contribution of Dhaka, Bogura, Jashore and Faridpur is decreased compared to the earlier period. Based on historical production trend, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Bogura, Jashore, Rajshahi and Chattogram significantly contributed 13.9%, 9.8%, 8.6%, 8.6%, 8.2% and 8.0%, respectively of the total production, and they were positioned as the most rice contributed regions compared to others. On the other hand, Khulna (4.4%) and Faridpur (3.7%) contributed less compared to other regions and Rangamati was the lowest production contributor (0.7%) among all regions. However, the rice cultivation area of Mymensingh has been found as higher compared to other regions where Rangamati had the lowest rice cultivation area in Bangladesh ( Fig 3B ).

Periodic production contribution of major rice-growing regions (a), and regional production contribution and area coverage of rice (b) during 1984–85 to 2019–20. Period I: 1984–85 to 1995–96, Period II: 1996–97 to 2007–08, Period III: 2008–09 to 2019–20.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g003

Regional trend and growth analysis of rice

Spatial and temporal (periodic) variability has been found in the rice cultivation area of Bangladesh ( Fig 4 ). Over the period, regional variation prevails in terms of rice cultivation area ( Fig 5 and Table 2 ). A continuous decreasing trend was observed in Aus cultivated area and an increasing trend was found in all regions for Boro season. The highest area decreasing rate (-18.43%) was found in Rangpur throughout the period in Aus season but in the recent period, the area is increasing at the rate of 29.62%. However, the Aman rice area fluctuated slightly in all regions, but Dhaka, Faridpur, Khulna and Sylhet regions showed a significantly decreasing trend (-0.43 to -1.54%). Overall Bangladesh, the Aus and Aman area decreased by -3.63% and -0.16% per year, respectively and the Boro area is increasing with an annual rate of 3.57% during 1984–85 to 2019–20. In Period I and Period II, cultivated areas were decreased in most of the regions for the Aus and Aman season, but in the recent period (Period III), i.e., an increasing trend was observed in most of the regions. In total, the highest growth rate of rice area was found in Rangamati (2.03%) and the lowest was observed in Faridpur (-1.25%).

Spatial (regional) and temporal (periodic) distribution of Aus (a), Aman (b), Boro (c) and total (d) rice cultivation area of Bangladesh. Period I: 1984–85 to 1995–96, Period II: 1996–97 to 2007–08, Period III: 2008–09 to 2019–20. Shapefile republished from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) database ( http://maps.barcapps.gov.bd/index.php ) under a CC BY license, with permission from Computer and GIS unit, BARC, original copyright 2014.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g004

Trend of Aus (a), Aman (b), Boro (c) and total (d) rice cultivation area in Bangladesh.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g005

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.t002

Spatial and temporal (periodic) variability of rice production were observed in Bangladesh ( Fig 6 ). Rice production trends of Aus, Aman, Boro and total are presented in Fig 7 and Table 3 . The long-term production trend was found significantly increasing (2.18% to 10.25%) in all regions for the Boro season. In Aman season, production trends of all regions except Cumilla (-0.06%) were significantly increased (0.95% to 3.61%) over the period. Significant decreasing production trend (-15.33% to -4.05%) was found in most of the region for the Aus season but Barishal (2.39%), Rajshahi (3.49%) and Sylhet (1.07%) showed a significant increasing trend. In Aus, Aman and Boro season, the highest production growth rate was found in Rajshahi (3.49%), Rangamati (3.61%) and Dinajpur (10.25%), respectively. In total, the highest production growth rate was found in Dinajpur (4.07%) and the lowest was observed in Chattogram (1.64%).

Spatial (regional) and temporal (periodic) distribution of Aus (a), Aman (b), Boro (c) and total (d) rice production (metric ton) of Bangladesh. Period I: 1984–85 to 1995–96, Period II: 1996–97 to 2007–08, Period III: 2008–09 to 2019–20. Shapefile republished from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) database ( http://maps.barcapps.gov.bd/index.php ) under a CC BY license, with permission from Computer and GIS unit, BARC, original copyright 2014.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g006

Trend of Aus (a), Aman (b), Boro (c) and total (d) rice production in Bangladesh.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g007

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.t003

Spatial and temporal (periodic) variability of rice yield were observed in Bangladesh ( Fig 8 ). The yield trend was found increasing for all the regions and seasons of Bangladesh but region to region yield variations was very high ( Fig 9 and Table 4 ). In most of the region, a significant increasing growth rate was found for Aus, Aman, Boro and total rice yield. In Aus, the highest annual growth rate of yield was found in Rajshahi (3.86%) and the lowest was in Rangamati (0.89%). In Aman, the highest growth rate of yield was observed in Faridpur (2.95%) and the lowest was in Rangamati (1.21%). In Boro, the highest growth rate of yield was found in Sylhet (2.78%) and the lowest was observed in Bogura (1.30%). In total, the highest growth rate of yield was found in Faridpur (4.09%) and the lowest was observed in Rangamati (1.38%).

Spatial (regional) and temporal (periodic) distribution of Aus (a), Aman (b), Boro (c) and total (d) rice yield (metric ton) of Bangladesh. Period I: 1984–85 to 1995–96, Period II: 1996–97 to 2007–08, Period III: 2008–09 to 2019–20. Shapefile republished from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) database ( http://maps.barcapps.gov.bd/index.php ) under a CC BY license, with permission from Computer and GIS unit, BARC, original copyright 2014.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g008

Trend of Aus (a), Aman (b), Boro (c) and total (d) rice yield in Bangladesh.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g009

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.t004

Modern variety adoption

Periodic modern varieties adoption (%) in different regions are illustrated in Fig 10 . In Aus season, high yielding varieties (HYVs) adoption was very low in Periods I and II, but in recent years adoption is much higher than earlier and it is gradually increasing. For the Aman season, the HYVs adoption percentage is gradually increased in all regions, while the lowest adoption was found in Barishal and Faridpur regions. HYVs adoption in Boro season has found always been higher than Aus and Aman. Though adoption is higher in Boro season from the earlier periods, it is still gradually increasing and it reaches almost 100% in most of the areas. However, the adoption rate was comparatively low in Sylhet region during Boro season. Over the period, the modern variety adoption percentage gradually increasing in all over Bangladesh. The countrywide average modern variety adoption (%) in different seasons are shown in Fig 11 . In recent period, the adoption percentage of Aus rice reached 72% from 21.4%. In Period I, the HYV adoption percentage for Aman season was 34.15% and it increased by 73.5% in Period III. Similarly, for Boro season adoption is gradually increasing and it reaches 88.6% to 98.4% from Period I to Period III.

Periodic and regional high yielding varieties adoption (%) of Aus (a), Aman (b), Boro (c) and total (d) rice season in Bangladesh. Period I: 1984–85 to 1995–96, Period II: 1996–97 to 2007–08, Period III: 2008–09 to 2019–20.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g010

Period I: 1984–85 to 1995–96, Period II: 1996–97 to 2007–08, Period III: 2008–09 to 2019–20.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g011

Cluster analysis for identifying the dynamics of rice varietal adoption and production growth

The cluster analysis is used to identify groups of identical rice production regions depicting similar characteristics in their modern variety adoption and production growth rate ( Fig 12 ). From the analysis, different classes of cluster have been identified to classify the regions exhibiting significant rising trends, significant decreasing trends and mixed or insignificant trends in the rice production and high yielding adoption growth rates. Fig 12 is prepared by using K-means clustering to reflect the aforesaid distinct characteristics. In Aus season, HYV variety adoption growth rate is positive for all the regions except Rangamati. But in Mymensingh, Bogura, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Dhaka and Faridpur have negative production growth rate and formed the same cluster. For Aman season, we have identified four clusters where Dinajpur, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Barishal formed a similar cluster. Another cluster contains Jashore, Mymensingh, Bogura, Rangpur and Cumilla regions and, Rangamati and Chattogram formed a similar cluster. In the case of Boro season, Chattogram, Rangamati, Bogura, Mymensingh, Faridpur, Dhaka and Mymensingh are in the same cluster environment whereas Rajshahi, Jashore, Rangpur and Barishal are in the same cluster. The other cluster was found in Khulna and Dinajpur regions, whereas Sylhet formed a single separate cluster ( Fig 12 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.g012

Growth and trend analysis are necessary to demonstrate the rice scenario by season, area, yield, production and varietal adaptability. Rice production depends on the season, variety, environment and geographical segmentation. Rice is cultivated in three seasons in Bangladesh namely Aus, Aman and Boro. This study revealed that the production contribution of Boro season is much higher compared to other seasons since 1998–99. Whereas production contribution of Aman season was higher from 1969–70 to 1997–98. Boro season is less vulnerable to rice disease, pests and other natural calamities and government incentives on Boro cultivation more specifically on irrigation facilities increase the Boro cultivation area [ 6 , 18 ]. Moreover, after the release of two Boro mega varieties, BRRI dhan28 and BRRI dhan29 in 1994, the second silent green revolution of rice has occurred in Bangladesh. More than 60% of the area is covered by these two varieties during Boro season [ 19 ]. Currently, Boro cultivation area recorded for 61% of total cropped area in the Rabi season, which contributes 55% of total rice production in the country [ 18 ]. Our findings are also similar to this results. The maximum growing degree days, long vegetative growth, sunny weather and high amount of fertilizer utilization capacity favors the potential yield of rice during Boro season [ 18 ]. Moreover, the price of Boro rice is higher compared to other seasons which is also a key regulator of the intend of farmers to cultivate Boro rice [ 20 ]. Boro-Fallow-Fallow is the second dominant cropping pattern (13% of total net cropped area) of Bangladesh [ 6 , 21 ] and this pattern profoundly found in Haor areas where other season rice cultivation is not possible except Boro due to stagnant water [ 22 , 23 ]. Haor area is a major contributor (18%) of rice production in Boro season [ 24 ] and it might be another cause of yield differentiation from other seasons. However, cold stress at seedling stage in north-west and reproductive stage in north-east (haor) regions, heat wave during flowering stage, biotic stresses mainly blast and brown plant hopper, and flash flood are becoming major challenges for Boro rice cultivation [ 25 ]. To overcome these challenges, adoption of biotic and abiotic stress tolerant varieties, precision management and irrigation infrastructure are the key production risk management strategies.

Rainfed Aman rice yield has been found as static compared to other seasons during the study period. Therefore, to ensure the future food demand of overgrowing populations, we have to sustain or increase the Aman rice production in Bangladesh. Though the rice cultivation area of Aman is higher than Aus and Boro, the yield capacity of Aman varieties is lower than the Boro varieties [ 5 ]. Climatic conditions i.e., cloudy weather, low uptake capacity of fertilizer, lowest growing degree days and short life duration are the main causes of low rice yield of Aman season. Delay planting due to anomalous rainfall, early flood, drought and other climatic hazards causes low yield of Aman rice [ 26 , 27 ] which discourage farmers to cultivate rice in Aman season. Late planting of Aman sometimes hampered the rabi crops (potato, wheat, mustard, vegetables, Boro rice etc.) cultivation. Rabi crops cultivation are more profitable and safer than Aman rice and so farmers prefer to keep the land fallow during Aman instead of rice cultivation [ 28 ]. To encourage the farmers for cultivating Aman rice, short duration HYVs i.e., BRRI dhan56, BRRI dhan57, BRRI dhan71 and BRRI dhan75 could be a potential technology. Coastal area comprises 20% of the country and it covers 30% of the net cultivation area of Bangladesh [ 29 ]. To withstand the challenge of salinity of coastal region during Aman season, farmers tend to cultivate traditional local saline tolerant rice varieties which gives poor yield [ 30 ]. Prawn culture is a profitable income source to the farmers of southern part and so they prefer to culture prawn in “Gher (closed flat area)” than the rice cultivation during Aman season [ 31 ]. Deficiency of nutrients such as N, P, Cu and Zn in saline soil are also a major drawback for low yield of rice in coastal areas. However, technological advancement and development of high yielding varieties can play a vital role for increasing Aman rice production. Farmers of the southern region tend to cultivate Aman instead of Boro due to availability of soil moisture and low salinity problem. Rainfall of Aman season diminishes the salinity which favors the rice cultivation in this season [ 32 ]. Moreover, salinity is a major problem for Boro (dry season) cultivation in the southern part of Bangladesh [ 33 ]. Heavy tide is another hinder for rice cultivation in southern-coastal regions. BRRI dhan76, BRRI dhan77 and BRRI dhan78 are modern high yielding rice varieties of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), bred in such a way so that their seedlings will be long to withstand the tidal wetland condition [ 34 ]. These varieties give around 5 tonnes yield per hectare which is higher than the local indigenous varieties (2.5 to 3 tonnes/ha) and these varieties shed a light on increasing rice production in the coastal areas. BR23 and BRRI dhan47 are high yielding salt tolerant varieties for Aman and Boro season, respectively which covered a significant area of southern regions. Now-a-days, the newly released HYV i.e., BRRI dhan67 is gaining popularity in saline prone areas of Bangladesh.

Aus is one of the most vulnerable rice growing seasons of Bangladesh [ 35 ]. Climatic conditions i.e., hot humid weather favors the outbreak of diseases and insect pest during Aus season. Tungro is one of the severe threats of Aus production and it can cause 100% yield loss of rice under severe outbreak condition [ 36 ]. Flash flood, drought, high temperature and low yield are also a major drawback of Aus production. Moreover, late transplanting of Boro rice is one of the reasons for Aus area reduction [ 37 ]. High yield and production as well as net return of Boro rice also dampened farmers’ interest to cultivate Aus rice. But intensive irrigated Boro rice cultivation depletes the underground water resulting irrigation water scarcity in the northern part of Bangladesh. So, shifting of Boro area to Aus cultivation is the key concern of the present time. However, adaptation of modern varieties (like BRRI dhan48), disease and pest management technologies and irrigation facilities could be a good option to withstand the challenge of the critical environment of the Aus season.

Mymensingh is the largest rice producing region while the lowest rice producing region was Rangamati in terms of area and production. This is because Mymensingh is favorable for rice cultivation and Rangamati is the hilly disadvantageous areas and less access to modern technologies. We found most of the regions have positive production growth rate for Aman and Boro season. But in Aus season, especially Mymensingh, Bogura, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Dhaka and Faridpur have negative production growth rate. This is due to most of the aforementioned regions have dominated Boro-Fallow-T. Aman cropping pattern. In addition, those regions have intensified with non-rice cash crops and thereby the required growth duration of Aus is insufficient. Noticeably, the released Aus rice varieties are not easily fit into this cropping pattern. Besides, some regions have single Boro dominated cropping patterns due to adverse agro-climatic and geographical conditions. This is why some regions have negative production growth rate. To increase the regional productivity equally, varietal and management interventions is must. Kabir et al., [ 5 ] reported that there are five unexplored areas in Bangladesh, where rice cultivation is possible. They mentioned that greater Barishal region, greater Sylhet region, South-west and greater Jashore region, Coastal charland in Barishal and Noakhali, and Chattogram hill tracts have unexplored areas. New HYVs, irrigation facilities, proper drainage system, and re-excavation of canals needs to be applied in these regions to increase the rice production.

Improved varieties and production technologies are the key drivers for enhancing rice production in Bangladesh. So far, we have developed 137 modern rice varieties and more than 300 production technologies by addressing different favorable and fragile ecosystems. Out of 36 stress tolerant varieties, BRRI dhan71 and BINA dhan19 in drought; BRRI dhan51, BRRI dhan52 and BINA dhan12 in submergence; BRRI dhan67, BRRI dhan97 and BINA dhan10 in saline, and BRRI dhan36 and BRRI dhan55 in cold ecosystems are the promising varieties for increasing production of stress prone areas in Bangladesh. Besides, BR11, BRRI dhan28, BRRI dhan29, BRRI dhan48, BRRI dhan49, BRRI dhan50, BRRI dhan58, BRRI dhan63, BRRI dhan81, BRRI dhan87, BRRI dhan89, BRRI dhan92, BRRI dhan96, BRRI dhan98, BRRI hybrid dhan3, BRRI hybrid dhan5 and BRRI hybrid dhan7 are the main players to boost up the rice production in Bangladesh. Use of water saving alternate wet and drying (AWD) techniques for irrigation, use of shallow water tubewell for irrigation from pond or river water, government subsidies for fertilizer and irrigation facilities, development of cropping pattern to relief the abject poverty of the northern part, disease and insect management technologies, and training of farmers to adopt modern rice cultivation techniques are acted as a catalyst to increase the rice production in Bangladesh.

This study examined the area, production and yield trend, and growth rates of rice from 1984–85 to 2019–20; and analytically classified the rice production regions. Trend analyses showed an increasing and decreasing growth rates for the Aus, Aman, Boro, and total rice determinants in different periods. In Aus rice, area and production growth rate had significantly decreased in all the regions, while yield was significantly increased over the period. In the Aman season, the area growth rate was decreased for seven regions, but production and yield growth rates were significantly increased for all regions. Based on area, production, and yield, Boro rice have found a significant increasing trend in all the regions. In the recent period, HYVs adaption rates were found 72% for Aus, 73.5% for Aman, and 98.4% for Boro season. During 1969–70 to 2019–20, the production contribution to the national rice production of Boro rice is significantly increasing at 0.97% per year, where Aus and Aman season production contribution significantly decreased by 0.48% and 0.49% per year, respectively. Aggregated in last 36 years rice production, Mymensingh (13.9%), Rangpur (9.8%), Bogura (8.6%), Jashore (8.6%), and Rajshahi (8.2%) were the top five production contributor regions in national rice production of Bangladesh. We have identified different cluster regions in different seasons, indicating high dissimilarities among the rice production regions. It is recommended that steps need to be taken to increase and sustain the rice production by implementing several specialized approaches. The region-wise actionable plan should be taken to rapidly adopt new technologies and highlight the research and extensions activities for fewer contributor regions to improve productivity. Cluster-wise policy strategies should be implemented for top and less contributor regions to ensure rice security as well as food security in Bangladesh.

Supporting information

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.s001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261128.s002

Acknowledgments

Authors express their sincere thanks to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) for making available of relevant rice data and administrative GIS shape file of Bangladesh, respectively. The authors also acknowledge several scientists of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute for participating discussion at various stages of preparing the manuscript.

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Bangladesh's Emergence as a Ready-Made Garment Export Leader: An Examination of the Competitive Advantages of the Garment Industry

Original Research
Published: 09 February 2022
Volume 17 , pages 162–174, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

Ishtehar Sharif Swazan ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8091-861X 1 &
Debanjan Das ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8615-8455 1

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Bangladesh is the second-largest ready-made garment (RMG) manufacturer and exporter in the world. The RMG industry of Bangladesh has become one of the fastest-growing industries globally since the 1990s and is the main source of its foreign earnings for the last three decades. To gain an in-depth understanding of the Bangladeshi RMG industry’s competitive advantages, a semi-structured qualitative interview approach was employed with 14 executives currently working in the Bangladeshi RMG industry. Porter’s (1990) diamond model of national competitive advantage was adopted as the study’s conceptual framework. Interpretation of the study data revealed four key competitive advantages for the Bangladeshi RMG industry: (a) price, (b) on-time delivery, (c) quality, and (d) product advantages. This study explores the RMG industry of Bangladesh and identifies the competitive advantages from the executive’s perspective, thereby adding value and originality to the academic literature.

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Introduction

In the last 25 years, the ready-made garments (RMG) industry has been the most significant source of foreign earnings for Bangladesh (Das et al., 2018 ; Rahman, 2021 ; Zaman, 2021 ). More than 84% of the total export earnings in 2019–2020 came from garment exports which are both a comforting and alarming issue (BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ; Islam, 2021 ). Comforting because it shows that the export growth of the RMG industry is stable and alarming because of the country's dependency on one source of foreign income. Attaining competitive advantages in garment exports would provide stability to the RMG industry of Bangladesh and help it become more successful.

Continued growth in the apparel industry has helped Bangladesh to maintain steady economic growth (Ahlquist & Mosley, 2021 ; Zaman, 2021 ). The salary structure of the Bangladeshi apparel industry is the major reason the country is considered a global apparel sourcing hub as the current monthly minimum wage is USD 97 (Chandra & Ferdaus, 2020 ; Paul, 2018 ). Meanwhile, the minimum monthly wage in China ranges from USD 162 to USD 358 (Koty & Zhou, 2019 ). This lower wage attracts foreign buyers to source from Bangladesh, leading to an apparel export value of USD 33.07 billion in 2019 (BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ). Europe and the United States of America (USA) are the major exporting destinations comprising 80% of the country's total apparel exports in 2019. Bangladesh's apparel exports to the European Union (EU) in 2019 were USD 20.42 billion and to the USA was USD 6.02 billion (BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ). The country also exports apparel products to Canada, Japan, Australia, China, India, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey (Menzel & Woodruff, 2021 ).

Today, Bangladesh holds the second position in garment exporting while China remains the first for the last few decades (Nadiruzzaman et al., 2021 ; Zaman, 2021 ). Bangladesh is also seen as the next sourcing destination to replace China due to its large labor force, low wages, and modern manufacturing facilities (Islam, 2021 ; Menzel & Woodruff, 2021 ; Rahman, 2021 ). However, researchers (Ahlquist & Mosley, 2021 ; Ahmed, 2009 ; Bair et al., 2020 ; Das et al., 2018 ; Mottaleb & Sonobe, 2011 ) found low productivity, poor infrastructure, low research & development, non-availability of spinning facilities, and diseconomies of scale as drawbacks that led to poor performance of the Bangladeshi RMG industry. For example, the country witnessed a 1.2% negative growth rate in the global garment export share in 2019, while India and Pakistan enjoyed a positive growth rate of 2.2% and 4.74%, respectively, during the same period (Islam, 2021 ; Rahman, 2021 ; Zaman, 2021 ). Neighboring competitive countries seem to be taking advantage of the global market share more effectively than Bangladesh.

Although many studies have looked into Bangladesh's competitive advantage in the RMG industry, little research has examined its garment exporter's internal strategies or resources that could be used to compete more effectively in the global marketplace. Previous studies (Yunus & Yamagata, 2012 ; Kathuria, 2013 ; Alam et al., 2017 ; Mostafa & Klepper, 2018 ; Hossian et al. 2019 ; Rasel et al. 2020 ; Hasan et al., 2020 ; Islam, 2021 ; Zaman, 2021 ; Bari & Jin, 2021 ) found a vast labor force, low wages, suitable locations, and export-friendly policies as the competitive advantages of Bangladesh’s RMG industry. These studies (Yunus & Yamagata, 2012 ; Alam et al., 2017 ; Mostafa & Klepper, 2018 ; Chandra & Ferdaus, 2020 ; Islam, 2021 ; Bhuyan & Oh, 2021 ) were focused primarily on the post-Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) quota period (2005–2015) and used secondary data to identify the competitive advantages. However, no recent study has been conducted to determine the present competitive advantages of the Bangladeshi ready-made garments industry from the executive’s perspective who are the life of this industry.

To address the shortage of research on the present competitive advantage situation, the current study has two main objectives: (1) to identify resources that are helping the Bangladeshi RMG exporters to gain and sustain competitive advantage in the global market according to the executives working there and (2) to understand the impact of government and chance factor in the Bangladeshi RMG exporters key resources.

To achieve these research objectives, a qualitative research design using in-depth semi-structured interviews with RMG executives in Bangladesh was carried out. The findings provide an original contribution to studies on the current competitive advantages of Bangladesh’s RMG which have been researched to a limited extent but only from a secondary data perspective.

Literature Review

Rmg industry of bangladesh.

The RMG industry of Bangladesh is considered one of the fastest-growing industries after the 1990s (Alam et al., 2017 ; Zaman, 2021 ). We can track the Bangladesh garment export industry’s history following the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. In the 1970s, the RMG trade was a micro-business enterprise that fulfilled domestic demands and was dominated by small tailoring outfits (Rasel et al., 2020 ). Tailoring was a popular business operated by skilled master tailors who could cut and sew cloth according to customers’ measurements and fittings. One such tailoring enterprise, Reaz garments, started manufacturing woven shirts in large quantities for export. The company exported Bangladesh’s first order of 10,000 woven shirts to France in 1978 (Yunus & Yamagata, 2012 ; Zaman, 2021 ).

Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) offered Bangladesh a quota-free status which attracted foreign investors. This led to the establishment of several joint ventures or foreign privately owned garment manufacturing facilities in the early 1980s (Alam et al., 2017 ; Akter, 2020 ; Zaman, 2021 ). Bangladesh was brought under the MFA quota system in 1986, and this opened the doors for Bangladesh to new markets such as the USA (Ahmed, 2009 ; Akter, 2020 ; Mottaleb & Sonobe, 2011 ). In 2005, after almost 19 years, the MFA quota system was terminated. Before it was terminated, RMG exports from Bangladesh grew at an annual average rate of 19% between 1990 and 2005 (Alam et al., 2017 ; Akter, 2020 ). After the abolition of the quota system, from 2005 to 2019, the average growth rate was 21% (Export Promotion Bureau, 2019 ). Additionally, the Generalized System of Preference (GSP) allowed Bangladesh to export RMG products to the European Union (EU) without any tariff, while the tariff rate on RMG products was 12.5% for all other countries (Bhattacharya & Rahman, 2000 ; Hasan et al., 2020 ; Islam, 2021 ).

RMG Product and Export Region

The RMG products of Bangladesh are mainly categorized into Woven and Knit. In 1992, woven export accounted for 86% of total garments export and knitwear export accounted for only 14% (Alam et al., 2017 ; BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ). However, the current scenario has dramatically changed, with woven exports accounting for 51% and knitwear exports accounting for 49% (Akter, 2020 ; BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ). The major reason for the decline of woven export is the dependence on imported raw materials which caused a delay in production and impacted delivery time. On the other hand, domestically produced yarn and fabrics are used for knitwear production which speeds up the production process (Bhuyan & Oh, 2021 ; Chandra & Ferdaus, 2020 ; Mottaleb & Sonobe, 2011 ).

The RMG industry of Bangladesh exports a variety of RMG items for men, women, and kids, such as shirts, jackets, trousers, sweaters, t-shirts, etc. Among them, T-shirts (USD 5.6 billion) and trousers (USD 5.4 billion) have the highest export value (BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ). Bangladesh’s RMG is concentrated mainly in two markets: the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA). These two markets comprise approximately 83% of Bangladesh’s total RMG export in 2020 (BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ; Islam, 2021 ). The RMG industry’s exports to the EU were valued at 17.02 billion USD in 2020 which was the highest followed by the USA valued at 5.06 billion USD and Canada valued at 0.8 billion USD (BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ).

Competitive Advantages of the Bangladeshi RMG Industry

Over the last 15 years, the RMG industry has revolutionized the country in terms of its contribution to GDP, employment for rural people, women empowerment, and socio-economic developments (Hasan et al., 2020 ; Mostafa & Klepper, 2018 ; Zaman, 2021 ). In 2020, Bangladesh contributed 6.4% toward the global RMG market share (Akter, 2020 ; Chandra & Ferdaus, 2020 ). This number is greater than some competitor countries like Vietnam (6.2%), India (3.3%), and Turkey (3.1%) (Hasan et al., 2020 ; Islam, 2021 ). The huge volume of garment exports helped the RMG industry to grow at a constant rate every year.

The number of RMG firms in Bangladesh has increased over time, and currently, a total of 4,406 firms produces garment items for export purposes in Bangladesh (BGMEA, 2021a , 2021b ). Low labor cost is considered as one of the primary reasons for the growth of the RMG industry in Bangladesh (Mostafa & Klepper, 2018 ; Rasel et al., 2020 ). However, low labor productivity has been an issue for the Bangladeshi RMG industry. Labor productivity in Bangladesh was found to be the lowest among the other apparel manufacturing nations such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, and China (Akter, 2020 ).

The size of the RMG manufacturing firms of Bangladesh also provides a competitive advantage for the country as large manufacturing firms usually have more capital and human resources (Chandra & Ferdaus, 2020 ; Hasan et al., 2020 ; Momaya, 2001 ). They also have a higher capacity to absorb the risk than smaller firms (Agrawal et al., 2021 ; Bair et al., 2020 ). The average size of a Bangladeshi firm is 797 employees per firm, which is much higher than some competitor countries like Vietnam (426 employees per firm) and China (269 employees per firm) (Alam et al., 2017 ). Additionally, a suitable location (Dhaka, Chittagong) of Bangladesh’s RMG firms helps achieve better export performance (Akter, 2020 ; Islam, 2021 ).

The government of Bangladesh has also taken many steps to enhance the economy through liberalization policies and reforms that brought in foreign investment in the RMG manufacturing industry (Hossian et al., 2019 ; Rasel et al., 2020 ; Hasan et al., 2020 ). A bonded warehouse is one of the facilities that has been provided by the Bangladeshi government on which RMG firms can import raw materials without paying any import duty (Ahmed, 2009 ; Akter, 2020 ). The government of Bangladesh also established the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) to help the RMG manufacturing industries to grow (Rahman, 2021 ).

Additionally, product diversification and export market diversification helped Bangladesh to become a powerhouse in RMG export. The availability of domestically produced raw materials for knitwear has boosted the knitwear exports for Bangladesh, whereas the export firms have to rely on imports for manufacturing woven products (Mottaleb & Sonobe, 2011 ; Hossian et al., 2019 ; Rahman, 2021 ; Lavassani & Movahedi, 2021 ).

Although Bangladesh improved its competitive advantages, the RMG industry is still plagued by factory fires, building collapses, and labor rights violations. The collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building killed 1133 people (Mostafa & Klepper, 2018 ; Rasel et al., 2020 ; Hasan et al., 2020 ). Thousands of factory workers were also critically injured by this incident. After that incident, the European and American retailers established the Accord and Alliance (Ahlquist & Mosley, 2021 ; Liu et al., 2019 ). The Accord primarily works to make the RMG factory a safe place for the workers. They work with both the brands and trade unions to make their vision come true (Ahlquist & Mosley, 2021 ). The Alliance was also created as a collaborative initiative to improve the safety condition of the RMG industry of Bangladesh.

Conceptual Framework: Porter Diamond Theory of National Competitive Advantage

The Porter’s Diamond Model is considered a strategic economic model and explains how or why one country or nation is more competitive in a particular industry than another nation (Liu, 2021 ; Porter, 1990 ; Wang & Li, 2020 ). In this model, Porter ( 1990 ) described how a specific firm's competitiveness is related to the performance of other firms in a similar industry. He also stated that an industry or firm always tries to improve and develop its performance to gain competitiveness (Momaya, 2019 ; Alavi et al., 2020 ). The target is to gain and sustain these advantages in the international market. Policymakers, marketers, and governments use this model to design a long-term development plan for their nation and achieve a competitive advantage (Jin & Moon, 2006 ; Halife, 2020 ; Alavi et al., 2020 ; Liu, 2021 ). Porter ( 1990 ) found four primary determinants that affect firms' competitive performance, including (1) factor conditions, (2) demand conditions, (3) related and supporting industries, and (4) firm strategy, structure, and rivalry. The determinants interact with each other to develop national competitiveness for any particular industry (Liu, 2021 ; Wang & Li, 2020 ). The government and the chance factor also influence the four determinants as it has the power to impact the process of development of a nation's competitive advantage.

Factor Conditions

Factor conditions can be defined as a nation's position in production constituents, such as labor, infrastructure, and resources necessary to compete in a given industry (Alavi et al., 2020 ; Liu, 2021 ). Porter ( 1990 ) identified factor conditions as human resources, physical resources, knowledge resources, capital resources, and infrastructure. He further subdivided the factor conditions into primary and advanced factors. Primary factors include climate, location, available materials, natural resources, unskilled labor which does not require further investment. Advanced factors include skilled labor, digital data, communications, and infrastructure which can be upgraded through reinvestment and innovation.

From the Bangladeshi RMG manufacturing firm's perspective, cheap labor, location, and favorable climate can be considered as the primary factor conditions and communication, and infrastructure as advanced factor conditions (Hasan et al., 2020 ; Mostafa & Klepper, 2018 ; Rahman, 2021 ; Uddin, 2014 ; Yunus & Yamagata, 2012 ).

Demand Conditions

Porter ( 1990 ) described demand conditions as the size and nature of the home market demand for the industry's product or service. If the scope of a home market is large, firms will become more competitive and financially stable (Liu, 2021 ; Wang & Li, 2020 ). Porter ( 1990 ) suggested four aspects of demand conditions: home demand composition, demand size and pattern of growth, internationalization of domestic demand, and the interplay of demand conditions.

The demand for domestic apparel in Bangladesh is much lower compared to international demand. This lower demand lessens the competitiveness within the apparel firms. Additionally, the future of domestic apparel demand in Bangladesh has also deteriorated as the international demand is increasing constantly and the apparel firms are more focused on fulfilling the international demand (Rahman & Anwar, 2007 ; Islam, 2021 ; Zaman, 2021 ).

Related and Supporting Industries

Related and supporting industries can be defined as the availability of supplier industry or any other related industry in the market, which assist any specific industry to grow more and become more competitive (Liu, 2021 ; Tsai et al., 2021 ). It is an important determinant because the presence of related industries creates pressure for that specific firm or industry to compete nationally and internationally. Additionally, supporting industries that are highly competitive in the global market can provide cost-effective and efficient input for that firm or industry.

The related and supporting industries in the RMG industry of Bangladesh can be described as the textile raw materials industry, subcontractors, logistics, and financial institutions (Akter, 2020 ; Islam, 2021 ). The banks and insurance companies are the other two main supporting industries that assist the RMG industry by providing working capital to fulfill its contractual terms (Bhuyan & Oh, 2021 ; Uddin, 2014 ). However, the garment industry of Bangladesh didn’t get enough support from the local textile raw materials industry as the demand always remains higher than the supply. So, the garment industry had to import most of their raw materials such as yarn, zippers, buttons, and labels from other countries which increase the production lead time and product price (Islam, 2021 ).

Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry

Porter ( 1990 ) described firm strategy, structure, and rivalry as conditions in the nation governing how the companies are created, organized, and managed as well as the nature of the domestic rivalry. Firm structure, strategy, and rivalry mainly depend on that nation's culture, such as how people contribute towards their nation, how they interact with each other, and how they behave within an organization (Halife, 2020 ; Tsai et al., 2021 ). Additionally, higher rivalry makes an industry attractive in the international market.

The RMG industry of Bangladesh has gradually developed its firm structure and strategy over the last two decades. Most of the RMG firms are inspected and certified by Accord on Fire and Building Safety certification established by European retailers after the building collapse tragedy in 2013 (Ahlquist & Mosley, 2021 ; Liu et al., 2019 ). The RMG firms now also have better transportation facilities that speed up the delivery process (Islam, 2021 ).

The Role of Government

Porter ( 1990 ) stated that government plays an influential role in the nation's competitiveness. The role of the government is mainly to assist the firms or industry to innovate and help them become more successful in the global market (Alavi et al., 2020 ). Porter ( 1990 ) stated that it is the firms or industry which creates competitive advantages for themselves. The government can only influence or push those firms to be competitive through favorable policies and financial help.

Bangladesh's government implemented several policies that helped in the growth of the RMG industry during its early stages. A back-to-back letter of credit (L/C) which provides a financial security or guarantee from the Bangladeshi government-owned bank for the international material supplier for any kind of failure of payment was one of those policies that helped RMG firms to grow (Alam et al., 2017 ; Islam, 2021 ). Import tariff exemptions and free warehouse facilities are also some of the major steps that have been taken by the government of Bangladesh (Zaman, 2021 ).

Porter ( 1990 ) defined chances as the event that cannot be controlled by the firm or industry authority. Moreover, chances are unexpected events on those there is little or no control. Chances could be a natural disaster, political riots, financial markets or exchange rates, military war, or any sudden situation that hamper the competitive advantages of that firm or industry (Liu, 2021 ).

The RMG industry of Bangladesh has been affected by various chance factors. Labor unrest, factory building collapse, and factory fires are the most common chance factors affecting the Bangladesh apparel business (Akter, 2020 ; Das et al., 2018 ; Uddin, 2014 ). The COVID-19 pandemic also has a harsher impact on the RMG industry of Bangladesh. The pandemic caused the temporary closure of RMG manufacturing firms due to mandatory lockdown orders from the government, downward demand shifts, and safety and health issues. Many firms had to close their business operations permanently as they did not have enough financial backups to restart their firms.

Methodology

This study aims to gain an in-depth understanding of the firm resources that the Bangladeshi RMG industry has. Additionally, the study also investigates how various factors such as ownership, government policies, nation's environment, and financial agreements affect the resources of the RMG industry, which helped them gain a competitive advantage. A qualitative interview was employed to identify the original resources that the RMG firms of Bangladesh have (Evans & Lewis, 2018 ). A qualitative interview was used because qualitative inquiry helps to better understand a topic of which little is known (Creswell, 2014 ; McGrath et al., 2019 ).

As this study is exploratory, semi-structured interviews were employed as a suitable research design (Evans & Lewis, 2018 ). A semi-structured interview allows for an open-ended response from the interviewee to get more in-depth information and encourage two-way communication (McGrath et al., 2019 ). Table 1 provides a sample of questions that were asked in the interviews.

A participant list was developed in the following ways to locate a group of participants representing Bangladesh's RMG industry: (a) through a business directory, and (b) through personal contacts. Upon approval of the university Institutional Review Board, participants were recruited. In total 68 participants were selected for this study who represented the management of their organization. Participants were then contacted by email. Study details and IRB approval forms were also provided. Out of the 68 emails sent, 23 participants responded to the emails. However, saturation was met with 14 interviews, as additional interviews yielded no new information (Francis et al., 2010 ; McGrath et al., 2019 ). International phone interviews were arranged with the selected participants between March 2020 and August 2020. Table 2 presents descriptions of the study participants.

Data Collection and Analysis

Semi-structured interviews allowed for supplementary questions and dialouge (Evans & Lewis, 2018 ). The length of the interviews lasted from 30 to 60 min. First author conducted all the interviews with the managers and executives of the Bangladeshi RMG industry. All the interviews conducted were recorded with the consent of the interviewees and the audio recordings were transcribed accordingly.

All subjects and materials of the interview process were coded without any personal identifiers. Each interview transcript was reviewed and coded by the individual researcher. Researchers used an open coding process which assisted them in identifying the recurring codes (Parameswaran et al., 2019 ; Tavory, 2020 ). After every interview, researchers also wrote the analytic memos to identify the connections between the codes (Saldana, 2016 ; Tavory, 2020 ). Memoing helped to get or understand any predetermined meanings from the data (Evans & Lewis, 2018 ). Intercoder Reliability was found to be 92.37 percent which is higher than the recommended threshold (Creswell, 2014 ; Saldana, 2016 ; Parameswaran et al., 2019 ).

The data obtained after the transcribing and coding process were then interpreted by emerging themes (Tavory, 2020 ). A comprehensive analysis of the words in each transcript was conducted, followed by a comparison of themes and patterns across the transcripts. The data were broken up and arranged into themes continuously until the patterns, and corresponding categories emerged (Evans & Lewis, 2018 ). The researcher's reflexivity and participant feedback were the validation strategies used to ensure the themes' validity (McGrath et al., 2019 ). The themes obtained from the interviews were sent to all of the participants for their feedback and 8 of the participants responded and their feedback was positive.

Key Competitive Advantages

Participants described four key competitive advantages that they have over their competitors: (a) price advantage attained through aggressive product pricing, (b) on-time delivery advantage through speedy transport infrastructures, (c) quality advantage through the skilled workforce, and (d) product advantages that the Bangladesh firms acquired through competitive price and product variety.

Price Advantage

Price advantage emerged as the most critical competitive advantage. Twelve participants described the capacity to provide products at market prices as a competitive advantage. To the participants, price advantage did not necessarily mean the lowest price. Out of the fourteen participants, three stressed the importance of maintaining a "competitive price" to sustain their business. Avi and Nafisa, both merchandisers, working at an export firm, described the apparel business of Bangladesh by expressing his belief that it is controlled by "affordable and competitive" product price.

Avi: “Production delays are a strict no-no in today's cut-throat garment export business. The margins have reduced, and the lead times have shortened. To sustain our business, price is critical, or else we lose orders to Vietnam and China”. Nafisa: “We are always conscious about our pricing and try to maintain a competitive price for all of our products”.

On-Time Delivery Advantage

The ability to deliver products on time emerged as the second important recurring theme. Developing the physical infrastructure and upgrading the machinery seemed to be essential resources for achieving an on-time delivery advantage. Eleven participants stated transportation infrastructure as a critical firm resource. Previous research (Yunus & Yamagata, 2012 ; Alam et al., 2017 ) pointed out the lack of proper infrastructure for global competition in the Bangladeshi RMG industry. However, in this study, it was interesting to see that the participants emphasized the infrastructure developments.

The Bangladeshi RMG firm's investment in transportation infrastructure and efforts to increase productivity is a relatively new phenomenon. Three participants mentioned that they are in their initial phases of implementing these efforts. Seven participants described "transportation, shipping, and cargo services" and four participants described "government policies in improving transport facilities" as the infrastructural development activities that help Bangladeshi firms attain on-time deliveries. Bikas, a merchandiser of an apparel export firm, cited "shipping company" and "government schemes" as crucial resources to deliver products on time regularly:

Bikas: “Government export schemes are very helpful. These schemes reduce the lead time in production and help us to deliver the product on time”. Anwar: “Timely delivery is very important for us as we want to sustain a good relationship with our buyer”.

Quality Advantage

The ability to provide products of a better quality was found to be another essential competitive advantage. Eight out of fourteen participants described "ensuring quality" as a key competitive advantage. Two participants also stressed the importance of having "skilled workers" to maintain good quality to attain competitive advantage. Five of the study participants shared that a quality product is a product that would satisfy buyers so that the participants do not have to repeat production. "No compromise on quality" was found to be an important trend among the participants. Som, a senior executive in an apparel export firm, stated that having a robust technical team was essential in maintaining product fit, product variety, and upholding the quality standard requirements. It seemed that quality is an essential component for developing a good relationship with the buyer.

Som: “For us, better product quality is of utmost importance as we are working with quality and not quantity. We cannot afford to lose buyers in today's economy”. Rahman: “We ensure quality and commitment. We have a high profile technical and quality team to improve the lean manufacturing process”.

Product Advantage

Six participants described the ability to provide variety in their product at a reasonable price as one of their key competitive advantages. The ability to produce in "huge" or "large" quantities also seemed to be aiding the export firm's product advantage. Three participants described the ability to manufacture in large quantities as a key resource. "Training programs" and "the sharing of technical knowledge" between buyers and firm managers also were found to be consistent key resources that helped the firms attain product advantage.

Rup: “Foreign buyers share their knowledge and experience about the latest production system and any specialized fabric. That helps us to develop our skills”.

Porter's Determinants:

Factor conditions to build competitive advantages.

The managers described the unique factor conditions of the Bangladeshi RMG export firms as (a) Accord and Alliance certification, and (b) human resources.

Almost all participants described certifications by Accord and Alliance as a factor condition. This was not surprising, as the Bangladeshi RMG industry has faced many accidents due to poor physical infrastructure, the most consequential incidents being the Rana Plaza building collapse and the Tazreen factory fire. The above certifications seemed to authenticate the firm's claim of having a strong infrastructure and were used as a tool to attract buyers.

Shaan: “Accord engineers have physically verified all the items based on the standards developed by the Bangladesh Government, Accord & ILO”.

Human resources emerged as the next most frequently described factor condition to develop and maintain a competitive advantage. Seven participants described employees, skilled operators, and workers as key human resource management factors for their organization. This was consistent with Zaman ( 2021 ) who found skilled workers and laborers to be an essential resource for the growth of Bangladesh's RMG industry.

A good work environment and better working relationships emerged as important human resource development processes. The managers described providing a good work environment as a retention tool as it created positive energy for the internal growth of their employees. They also emphasized the importance of having a "better relationship" with workers. It may be deduced that a better relationship with workers can lead to higher productivity.

Som: “The owner keeps a good relationship with the workers and officers and motivates everyone. That's why it is helpful for us to work in this company”.

Demand Conditions to Build Competitive Advantages

Quality, infrastructure, good customer relationships, labor welfare, and productivity were found to be the critical factors influenced by demand conditions. Out of the fourteen firms analyzed, three firms exclusively exported to the EU and eleven firms exported to both the USA and EU. The key factors found to be influenced by the EU's demand conditions were: (a) quality and (b) good relationship; and by the USA's demand conditions: (a) infrastructure and (b) labor welfare and productivity.

RMG firms working with EU buyers focused both on quality and quantity as the EU buyers give a large number of orders and do not compromise on quality. Also, the firms need to put a competitive price tag for EU buyers to maintain a strong relationship that will bring more orders for the firms. It was also found that all fourteen export firms preferred working with EU buyers as they felt more confident in communicating with the EU buyers than other buyers. On the other hand, buyers from the USA focus more on the firm's infrastructure and labor conditions. After the Rana Plaza incident, US buyers have been more stringent on their requirements. They also stress quality products along with quantity.

Avi: “We provide quality products and on-time shipment. The buyers arrange training programs and share technical knowledge with us that helps us in maintaining buyer's quality standards”.

Supporting Industries that Help Build Competitive Advantages

Textile raw materials industry, shipping services, transportation and cargo services, spinning and dyeing industries emerged as the key supporting industries that influenced the competitive advantage of Bangladeshi RMG firms. Nine out of the fourteen participants named shipping, transportation, and cargo services as the main supporting industries. Competitive pricing and a well-established relationship with suppliers were found to be the vital competitive resources obtained through their supporting industries. In this study, Som described how transportation companies affected product pricing and could "make or break" an order while stressing the importance of the transportation companies. Porter ( 1990 ) stated that domestic firms in related industries often build a formal alliance and shared activities, which has happened in Bangladesh's RMG industry.

However, participants also shared that Bangladesh needs to source textile raw materials from outside the country due to lack of local supply. Bangladesh imports most of their yarns, woven fabrics, dyeing chemicals, garment accessories, and packaging materials from China which leads to the higher product price and thereby negatively affects the competitive price advantage.

Firm Ownership Type to Help Build Competitive Advantages

Firm ownership types that emerged from the study were domestic-owned firms, joint venture firms, and foreign-owned firms. The majority of the participants (nine out of fourteen) belonged to domestic ownership firms. (a) On-time delivery, (b) quality assurance, and (c) human resources were the key resources influenced by domestic ownership. However, foreign-owned firms (two out of fourteen) seemed to emphasize (a) marketing strategies, (b) quality standards, and (c) product pricing.

It was intriguing to observe that most (seven out of nine) participants believed that domestic ownership helped them maintain a good relationship with both the buyer and worker. Participants also described foreign ownership as a boon as "foreign owner has networking links with a lot of buyers" and brings business to factories. However, the participants described foreign ownership as having "less communication with workers" and "higher factory overhead cost."

Quality was found to be a shared resource across firm ownership. Five participants described quality structure, product quality, and quality enforcement as essential resources of their organization. The participants believed that they received constant orders from the buyers because of their product quality. Maintaining the quality standards across product lines seemed to be a common theme among Bangladeshi RMG export firms. Three participants described "a consistent quality level" as a key tool in ensuring uniform product quality. Interestingly, the participants focused on the long-term benefits and did not want to compromise quality for short-term profits.

Palash: “We never compromise our quality. Having a good quality is responsible for the reputation of our company”.

Government Policies that Promote Competitive Advantages

The central government policies that influenced the competitive advantages of Bangladeshi RMG export firms were export subsidies, export processing zones (EPZ), and financial services. It was interesting to note that all fourteen participants described the government's EPZs and subsidies as a success. Twelve-of-the-fourteen participants identified these government policies as having long-term goals and objectives, positively impacting these firms' competitive advantages.

The establishment of EPZs encouraged investors to construct RMG export firms. The EPZs were successful in attracting foreign investors to set up their RMG export firms. Six participants stated that the facilities provided under the EPZs have helped their companies be more competitive globally. Shaan stated that the EPZs provided the necessary infrastructure including proper transportation and electricity.

Nish: “Government export schemes have been very helpful. There are enough EPZs and these have helped the apparel business in Bangladesh”.

Access to international banking and financial services was found to be another government support that was helping Bangladeshi RMG firms. Easy access to banking facilities for the apparel firms and business loans with low-interest rates also were found as key resources helping Bangladeshi RMG firms to gain a competitive advantage. Alam et al. ( 2017 ) also found banking facilities as a major contributor to progress in the RMG industry of Bangladesh.

Som: “Government has a very positive approach to increase the business volumes by giving loans to the industry with a lower rate of interest and providing international banking facilities”.

COVID-19 was found to be the leading chance factor influencing the competitive advantages of Bangladeshi RMG export firms at the point of the interviews. Nine out of the fourteen participants cited the novel coronavirus as a chance factor affecting them. They also reported that the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected their key resources. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be assisting the firms to reduce wastages widespread in the Bangladeshi RMG export industry. Most firms had to reduce their overhead costs, which has prompted them to figure out ways to improve their productivity due to the pandemic.

Avi: "The COVID-19 virus has affected our production. We cannot source fabric from China. Many of our production lines are stopped”.

Though COVID-19 slowed down businesses, it brought the inefficiencies of the Bangladeshi RMG export industry into the open. The pandemic also exhibited Bangladesh's reliance on foreign raw materials. Due to COVID-19, the import of raw materials from foreign countries had to be halted, which greatly impacted factory production lines. Most of them do not have the fabrics they need to produce apparel for exports. The overall findings of this study is illustrated below (Fig. 1 ).

Adapted from Porter ( 1990 ) model

Bangladesh's competitive advantages.

Discussion and Conclusion

The RMG industry has contributed vastly to the economic development of Bangladesh, a small South Asian country that now has moved from low-to-middle-income status. After the abolition of the quota system, 2005 to the 2022, the average growth rate of the RMG export business in Bangladesh is 21%. This is higher than some other competitor neighbouring countries (India, Pakistan). The RMG industry is now contributing about 20% of the country's GDP. Additionally, the RMG industry currently employs around 5 million people, and about 80% of the workers are women, thereby making the country's women more empowered than before.

The results of this study revealed exciting findings of the RMG industry of Bangladesh. First, competitive price is considered as the most important resource by the RMG exporting firms in Bangladesh, followed by on-time delivery and quality. Second, most RMG firms of Bangladesh seemed to have good infrastructure, indicating that they can produce large quantities of orders and can deliver on time, thus attracting foreign buyers to Bangladesh. Third, ownership type and buyer type have a significant influence on the major resources of the Bangladeshi RMG firms as it was found to impact the firms' physical and organizational resources positively. Lastly, government policies have had a positive impact on the RMG export business of Bangladesh as it has provided exporting firms with several facilities that have helped the firms to grow and prosper.

The study results have provided major implications and contributions. First, the study findings provide a clear picture of the major resources of the Bangladeshi RMG export industry, which contribute towards competitive advantages. The findings also provide information about the factors that affect the competitive advantages of the RMG industry. Second, the findings of this research on major resources might assist the RMG industry of Bangladeshi in developing and sustaining those resources to achieve a competitive advantage. Third, the study findings may help both domestic and foreign investors who are planning to invest in the RMG export business of Bangladesh. Both local and foreign investors who planned to invest in the RMG industry of Bangladesh need to develop the major resources before investing. Fourth, policymakers also may find the study results very useful. Participants in this study described some government policies such as setting up EPZs and tax reduction as very useful to assist them in being more successful. Participants also described some governmental work activities like long-work processing time, complex work procedures that negatively affect their business. Policymakers might need to develop new export-friendly policies and improve the existing ones for the rapid growth of this RMG industry. Finally, the findings of this study might help the apparel or garment-related educational programs in Bangladesh. Adding the study findings to the existing curriculum may help students gain a deeper understanding of the competitive advantages of Bangladesh's RMG export industry so they can help the RMG export industry in the future to achieve unique key firm resources. The study findings support and expand Porter’s ( 1990 ) theory as we used the model to understand the competitive advantages of the RMG firms in Bangladesh. Also, it helped in understanding the different factors influencing the Bangladeshi RMG firm’s key resources.

The study has certain limitations. It was conducted based on qualitative interviews of fourteen top-level management personnel in selected RMG firms of Bangladesh. It was not possible to collect data from all types of RMG firms in Bangladesh. Additionally, phone interviews have certain limitations such as the researcher not being able to observe the non-verbal responses of the participants. Further quantitative studies involving survey method with a large number of participants across different geographical areas are needed to generalize the results. Future research is also recommended to better understand the effect of supporting industries and chance on the export competitiveness of the Bangladeshi RMG export industries.

Key Questions Reflecting Applicability in Real Life

How present competitive advantages in the RMG industry making Bangladesh a manufacturing hub?

Which resources of the RMG industry can help with rapid recovery from COVID-19 pandemic?

Which factors are mostly affecting the Bangladeshi RMG production?

What role the government of Bangladesh playing in the development of the RMG export industry?

How can Bangladesh be the next China in RMG export?

Availability of Data and Materials

The data supporting the findings of this study are available on request.

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Acknowledgements

The first author (ISS) would also like to express sincere thanks to the Department of Fashion Dress and Merchandising of the West Virginia University for accepting him as a graduate student, supporting him to conduct research, attend classes, seminars and conferences, and giving him a rare experience. Authors would like to thank the reviewers of the JGBC editorial team and Dr. Kirankumar Momaya for their kind suggestions and support.

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First author (ISS) collected, analyzed and interpreted the data regarding the competitive advantage, history and growth of Bangladeshi apparel industry, and drafted the manuscript. Second author (DD) conceived and designed the study and revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ishtehar Sharif Swazan .

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Swazan, I.S., Das, D. Bangladesh's Emergence as a Ready-Made Garment Export Leader: An Examination of the Competitive Advantages of the Garment Industry. JGBC 17 , 162–174 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42943-022-00049-9

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Issue Date : December 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42943-022-00049-9

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Extended beta models for poverty mapping: An application integrating survey and remote sensing data in Bangladesh

The paper targets the estimation of the poverty rate at the administrative regions level in Bangladesh.

The paper targets the estimation of the poverty rate at the Upazila level in Bangladesh through the use of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data. Upazilas are administrative regions equivalent to counties or boroughs whose sample sizes are not large enough to provide reliable estimates or are even absent. We tackle this issue by proposing a small area estimation model complementing survey data with remote sensing information at the area level. We specify an Extended Beta mixed regression model within the Bayesian framework, allowing it to accommodate the peculiarities of sample data and to predict out-of-sample rates. In particular, it enables to include estimates equal to either 0 or 1 and to model the strong intra-cluster correlation. We aim at proposing a method that can be implemented by statistical offices as a routine. In this spirit, we consider a regularizing prior for coefficients rather than a model selection approach, to deal with a large number of auxiliary variables. We compare our methods with existing alternatives using a design-based simulation exercise and illustrate its potential with the motivating application

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De Nicolò, Silvia ; Fabrizi, Enrico ; Gardini, Aldo. Extended Beta Models for Poverty Mapping. An application integrating Survey and Remote Sensing Data in Bangladesh, 2023

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Bangladeshi Newspapers and Bangla News Sites

This article is a list of newspapers published in Bangladesh. Bangla news sites, news agencies, overseas Bangladeshi community newspapers, and popular Bangla radio channels are also included in the list.

On this page →
National •
Chittagong •
Sylhet •
Khulna •
Rajshahi •
Barisal •
Comilla •
Rangpur •
Regional •
English •
News sites •

News agencies

National newspapers in bangladesh, বাংলাদেশের প্রধান সংবাদপত্রসমূহ.

Prothom Alo

One of the most widely read newspapers published in Bangladesh. The newspaper was founded in 1998.

One of the most widely circulated daily newspapers in Bangladesh.

Kaler Kantho

Daily broadsheet newspaper headquarters in bashundhara city, Dhaka.

Leading Bangladeshi broadsheet newspaper published in Dhaka.

Tabloid format newspaper published in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Major Bangla newspaper published by the Amar Desh Publications.

Bangladeshi daily newspaper published in Dhaka.

Amader Shomoy

Broadsheet newspaper based in Bangla Motor, Dhaka.

Leading Bangla-language newspaper in Bangladesh owned by the Globe group.

Bangla daily broadsheet newspaper, headquarters in 2/1 R K Mison Road, Dhaka.

Bhorer Kagoj

Providing in-depth analysis on international news as well as local and regional perspectives.

One of the oldest newspapers in Bangladesh.

Noya Diganta

Bangladeshi newspaper was founded in 2004.

Featuring sports, health, culture, religion, and more.

Jai Jai Din

Manobkantha.

Daily newspaper based in Gulshan, Dhaka.

Bangladesh Protidin

Featuring latest news and information on politics, business, agriculture, and more.

Shokaler Khabor

Chittagong newspapers.

Bir Chattagram Mancha

News chittagong24, coxs-bazar news (cbn), cox's bazar times, parbattanews.com, chittagong daily, teknafnews.com, coxsbazarvoice.com, chakaria news, sylhet newspapers.

Daily Sylhet

Amader sylhet, surma times, sylhet express, sylhet news world, sylheter alap, sylhet news 24, sylhet barta, habiganj samachar, ajker habigonj, habigonj news 24, sunamganj mirror, amader nabiganj, sylhet news times, sylhetwatch24.com, sylheter sokal, sylhet report, bhorer sylhet, punnobhumi sylhet, sylhetview24.com, khulna newspapers.

Newspaper published in Khulna.

Mathabhanga

Daily newspaper published in Chuadanga.

Regional newspaper based in Satkhira.

Khulna News

News and community site based in Khulna.

Anirvan (Khulna)

Kushtia times, andoloner bazar, meherpur news, cdnews24.com, satkhira news, rajshahi newspapers.

Sonali Sangbad

Local daily newspaper based in Rajshahi also distributed in neighboring districts including Jaipurhat, Naogaon, Natore, Nawabganj, Pabna, and Sirajganj.

Newspaper published in Dhaka and Bogra.

Chapainawabganj News

Bogra sangbad, sangbad konika (bogra), barisal newspapers.

Ajker Barisal

Barisal News

Providing local news from Borishal, Bhola, Borguna, Jhalokaţhi, Pirojpur, and Potuakhali.

Samobad.Com

Amader barisal, daily barisal, barisal today, ajker barta, gournadi.com, comilla newspapers, comilla web, comillar khabor, comilla news 24, comillar barta, amader comilla, comillarkagoj, comillar dak, rangpur newspapers, rangpur news, rangpurchitra, kurigram news, northernnews24.com, dinajpur news.

Providing news from Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh, Gaibandha, Joypurhat, Nilphamari and Rangpur.

All other regional newspapers in Bangladesh

Chaloman Noakhali

BegumGanj based newspaper in Bangladesh.

Noakhali Web

Local newspaper of Noakhali, Feni, Laksmipur, and Bhola.

Ajker Jamalpur

Gramer Kagoj (Jessore)

Shaptahik kagoj.

Chandpur Web

Bonik barta (dhaka), prime khobor, united news 24 (chuadanga), gangni news (meherpur), notun khobor, shemol bangla (sherpur), english-language newspapers in bangladesh.

Largest circulated English-language newspaper in Bangladesh. The Daily Star is the member of Asia News Network (ANN), a network of national daily newspapers published in Asian cities. Major Asian newspapers including China Daily ( China ), Statesman ( India ), Jakarta Post ( Indonesia ), Yomiuri/Yomiuri Shimbun ( Japan ), Nation ( Thailand ), and Viet Nam News ( Vietnam ) are the member or ANN.

Independent

Leading English-language daily newspaper published in Bangladesh.

Click Ittefaq

English-web edition of Bangladesh’s oldest national newspaper the Daily Ittefaq.

Leading English language newspaper published in Bangladesh. The newspaper's provides special supplements are Eid Fashion, Independence Day, Victory day, Ekushey, Faces of change, Pahela Baishakh, and New Year.

Financial Express

Focusing on business news, politics, Dhaka stock market, companies, finance, bank, trading, budget, revenue, economic growth, agriculture, share prices, textile industries, micro credit, and more.

Bangladesh Today

Bangladeshi English-language newspaper.

Newspaper published by Newscorp Publications Limited.

Dhaka Tribune

Bangla news sites.

In Bangladesh there is hundreds of news sites providing constantly updated news and information. Most of the news sites are in Bangla-language.

Bdnews24.com

One of the leading news sites in Bangladesh. Featuring entertainment, sports, business, politics, science, technology, movies, travel, jobs, education, health, environment, real estate, and more.

banglanews24.com

Multimedia news portal from Bangladesh.

poriborton.com

mtnews24.com

Natunbarta.com.

banglamail24.com

Newsevent24.com.

AmaderShomoy.Com

Sharenews24.com, dhakatimes24.com, sheershanews.com, risingbd.com.

Present News BD

Bdlive24.com, sorejomin barta, justnewsbd.com, hello-today.com, primenewsbd, abnews24.com, dnewsbd.com, bangladeshinfo.com.

Bangladeshi online newspaper covering sports, business, textile, garments, horoscope, health, and more.

Bangla news site based in London.

Gopalgonj.net (Gopalgonj)

Hawker (dhaka), live press24.

24-hour online Bangla newspaper.

One News BD , Jessore

Daily prime news, amader protidin, all time news, amarsangbad.com, anews24.net, bangladesh business news, bangla-news24.com, bangla news update, bangla sangbad, banglar chokh, banglar dak 24, barta bangla, bauphal news, bd report 24, bd today news, bangladesh news agency(bna), children voice, coastal news, dundee barta, bd today 24, valo khabor, protimuhurto.com, khaskhabor.com, news bisher bashi, bdlawnews.com.

Law news portal covering Bangladeshi law news as well as national, and international news.

CrimeSearchNews.com

Prodhannews24.com, banglapostbd.com, jamunanews24.com, arthosuchak.

Share news and information site.

Bijoynagar News

Banglarsomoy24.com, banglasomoy24.com, lastnewsbd.com, rnews24.com, sherpurtimes.com, purbodiganta.com, prothombarta.com, protomsokal.com, overseas bangladeshi community newspapers.

One of the Bangladeshi community newspapers in UK .

TheGlobalNews24 , UK

Bangladesh national news agency (bss).

National news agency of Bangladesh.

United News of Bangladesh (UNB)

Bangladeshi news agency with the affiliation of Associated Press (AP).

All Bangla news sites

newspapers in CTG

Newspapers in khulna, newspapers in rajshahi, newspapers in sylhet.

All other regional newspapers published in various cities.

Daily Star, New Age, and Independent are top selling English-language newspapers in Bangladesh .

You may also like to read newspapers published in Kolkata .

Most popular Bangla-language news radio stations

Business news

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(PDF) Flood Research in Bangladesh and Future Direction: An Insight
stated that 97.1 % of Bangladesh and 139.6 million people are at risk of confronting. frequent oods because of hindu kush himalay an river systems. Glaciers melting of. the Himalay ans region and ...
Bangladeshi Newspapers : বাংলাদেশের সংবাদপত্রসমূহ
Leading Bangla-language newspaper in Bangladesh owned by the Globe group. Inqilab. Bangla daily broadsheet newspaper, headquarters in 2/1 R K Mison Road, Dhaka. Bhorer Kagoj. Providing in-depth analysis on international news as well as local and regional perspectives. Sangbad. One of the oldest newspapers in Bangladesh. Dinkal; Noya Diganta
Bangladesh Newspapers : BD News : All Bangla Newspaper
Daily Star, New Age, and Independent are top selling English-language newspapers in Bangladesh. Bangladesh newspapers and Bangla news sites including Bangladesh Pratidin, BD News 24, BD 24 Live and Bangla News 24. Read BD news online from all Bangla newspaper. BD news agencies are also listed in the page.