After China, Bangladesh is still the second largest apparel exporter in the world. The market share of Bangladesh, in the $503 billion global garment items is 5.1 per cent, according to data from the International Trade Statistics of the World Bank in 2014. China’s market share is 38.6 per cent and Vietnam and India share 3.7 per cent. However, China has been losing its market share mainly due to higher cost of production and shortage of skilled workforce in China. Bangladesh is one of the major beneficiary countries of shifting work orders from China.

Bangladesh’s export of garment items is on the rise as the global apparel retail giants are also increasing the volume of work orders for quality garment at competitive prices, following such shift. Bangladesh exported garment items worth $25.50 billion in 2014-15 fiscal and the earning from garment export during first 11 months (July-May) of the current fiscal year is $25.08 billion.

Meanwhile, only five items covered 78.59 per cent or $20.04 billion of the total garment export earnings at $25.50 billion in 2014-15 fiscal. The five items include shirts, trousers, jackets and sweaters. The target for the fiscal was set at $27.37 billion. Almost all major retailers have been increasing their volume of work orders in Bangladesh.