Jute is the major industry: Bangladesh accounts for 80% of world jute fiber exports. Low wages ensure a competitive and expanding textile industry, which constitutes one-third of the small manufacturing sector.
Weaknesses
The agricultural sector, which employs 68% of Bangladeshis, is vulnerable to the violent and unpredictable climate.
Profile
Government ministers like to portray Bangladesh as an emerging NIC, but its economy is still overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture and large
aid inflows. Agriculture, which provides the major export, jute, is productive: Bangladesh's soils, fed
by the Ganges, Jamuna and Meghna rivers, are highly fertile. However,the effects of the weather can be devastating, frequently destroying a whole year's crop. Agricultural wages are among the lowest in the world.
The state sector, which owns large, inefficient and massively loss-making companies (such as the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation), is in trouble. The World Bank, which channels most aid into the country, wishes to see loss-making concerns cut their work forces or close down.
Textiles and garments are perhaps the healthiest sectors. Economic zones (Export Processing Zones) with special concessions have attracted foreign investment, and have helped to promote a small indigenous electronics industry. Bangladesh receives generous textile import quotas from the EU and NAFTA, but its economy is so weak that it fails to reach them.
