THE IMPACT OF ONE BELT ONE ROAD INITIATIVE IN THE GARMENT SECTOR OF BANGLADESH.

Abstract

As the second largest garments producer and exporter in the world market after china, Bangladesh's readymade garment industry is one of the most important sector among others sectors, which serves a big market all over the world. Ready-made garments (RMG) of Bangladesh is considered as the backbone of its economy and has a great prospect to become the leading garment producer and exporter in the world market near future. Considering the biggest initiative of OBOR by Chinese government also known as New Silk Road initiative, which will be connected with more than 60 countries and sixty percent of total population in the world, Bangladesh is considered as a very important land both geographically and economically and has already declared to join in this initiative. While in recent years, the production cost of apparel in china is increasing very high and the opportunity cost of garments production is much higher than Bangladesh. So many buyers and producers are looking for a new destination for their investments and apparel business. In this situation OBOR initiative could be a window of opportunity as foreign direct investment (FDI) especially for RMG industry of Bangladesh. This paper focuses to find out what will be the impact of OBOR initiative on Bangladesh's economy specifically on garment sectors, and how Bangladesh will be benefited from this project, beside what steps Bangladesh government should be taken to make it meaningful.Garment industry of Bangladesh is most emerging sector amongst others sectors. This sector is considered as the backbone of its economy which is the second largest garment producer and exporter in the world after China (Abdin MJ, 2014). This RMG sector contributes around 82% of Bangladesh's total exports earning and covered around 16% of total GDP (Ahmed, Raihan, & Islam, 2013). Recently Bangladesh garment manufacturer and exporter association (BGMEA) has set a goal to export $50 billion by 2021 and become a largest producer and exporter in the world near future. As we know China is the largest garment producer and exporter in the world and its exports around $175 billion in 2016 beside it has a big market for readymade garments (Atm Adnan, 2016). Meanwhile, in 2013, Chinese government has taken One Belt One Road initiative (OBOR) which will be connected more than 60 countries in the world and more than 60% of total populations (Tian, 2016). Where Bangladesh is one of the important member of this initiative. In this research the author will try to find out how and why Bangladesh will be benefited from this OBOR initiative beside why it is important for Bangladesh specieficly for RMG sectors.