The World Bank (WB) has maintained that manufacturing sector in Bangladesh risks becoming uncompetitive, owing to lower productivity and reliance on low labour costs as wages are rising locally and use of labour-saving technologies, growing globally.

As per reports, the World Bank came up with the observation in its report titled ‘Gearing up for the Future of Manufacturing in Bangladesh’ released recently, wherein the WB, reportedly, maintained that export-led manufacturing growth model will remain central to Bangladesh’s sustained growth and job creation, but added that continued reliance on low labour costs to maintain competitive edge is increasingly becoming untenable as Bangladesh consolidates its middle-income status and its wage costs rise.

Further, a firm-level adoption of technology (FAT) survey on technology use in Bangladeshi firms, conducted as part of WB’s global FAT project in 2019-20, reportedly, revealed that most firms still use fully manual or powered but manually operated basic machinery across production stages and even in the apparel industry, most firms use basic machinery in most production stages, except for sewing even as 80 per cent of garment firms use semi-automated technology in the sewing stage, and 9 per cent use automated sewing methods.

Firms need to be enabled to climb the technology ladder, the new report, which was launched by Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi through a virtual programme recently, underlined.