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MONDAY, 11 MAY 2026
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Bangladesh Business & Economy
Bangladesh overtakes China in US apparel rankings — but fails to capture the opportunity
Bangladesh moved into second place among US apparel suppliers in Q1 2026, overtaking China for the first time — with exports of $2.04 billion against China's $1.70 billion in January–March. But here is the uncomfortable truth: Bangladesh's own exports to the US fell 8.38% over the same period, while the overall US apparel market contracted nearly 12% year-on-year to $17.76 billion. The "win" over China is a statistical side-effect of China's collapse (down 53%), not a capture of market share. The countries actually gaining from China's exit are Vietnam (+2.77%) and Cambodia (+18%) — both of which benefit from deeper backward linkage to Chinese raw materials and yarn. Bangladesh lacks this. Industry experts point to the same structural gap: without man-made fibre capacity and faster backward integration, Bangladesh will watch rivals absorb the orders that Chinese factories can no longer fill. Export growth is expected to remain subdued until at least July 2026.
Bangladesh's premium consumer market is quietly collapsing — inflation above 8% for four years has broken the middle class
From Gulshan to Dhanmondi, Chattogram to Uttara, retailers selling imported and premium goods are describing the same scene: empty footfall, unsold stock, and shelves that once held Gillette razors, Ferrero chocolates and Oral-B toothbrushes now sitting half-empty or replaced with local substitutes. P&G — present in Bangladesh for nearly three decades — ended its key distribution arrangements in early 2025. Inflation has stayed above 8% for nearly four years; wages have trailed prices for 50 consecutive months. Prices of many imported goods have doubled or more due to a combination of taka depreciation, LC restrictions, and duty revisions — a skincare item once assessed at $8/kg for customs is now valued at $20/kg, pushing total duty incidence to 130–140%. Lifestyle chains like Sundora are offering discounts of up to 70%. Luxury watch retailer Timezone reports declining mall footfall. Even upper-middle-income professionals — once the bedrock of premium spending — are now hesitating. This is what four years of inflation looks like on the ground.
↩ Last month in brief — Key economic headlines from April 2026
IMF blocked the $1.3B tranche at the Spring Meetings (Apr), citing failures in revenue, banking reform, subsidies and exchange rate flexibility — $1.86B remains uncollected before the programme expires Jan 2027. · Forex reserves (BPM6) crossed $30B for the first time since 2022, driven by record remittance inflows. · All three LNG long-term suppliers invoked force majeure (Qatar, Oman, US), pushing Bangladesh onto the volatile spot market at ~$21/MMBtu — double the contracted price. · Inflation eased to 8.71% in March from February's 9.13% peak, though April is estimated above 9% again due to energy costs. · NPLs fell to 30.6% (Dec 2025) from the 35.73% September peak via rescheduling — economists call it cosmetic relief, not structural recovery.
Economy Watch
Data Point or Policy Update
USD / BDT
122.25 ৳ buying
Selling: 123.25 · DBBL SL 81/2026 · Mon 11 May AM
YUAN / BDT (CNY)
17.98 ৳ buying
Selling: 18.23 · DBBL SL 81/2026 · Mon 11 May AM
DSEX (close, 10 May)
5,220.95 pts
▼ −13.15 pts · −0.25% · Last update 10 May, 2:30 PM
Gold 22k / Bhori (BAJUS)
২,৪৪,৭১১ ৳
▲ +Tk 2,216 vs prev · Effective 7 May · Unchanged 11 May
Inflation Rate (Mar '26, BBS)
8.71%
▼ Eased from Feb's 9.13% · Food infl: 8.24%
Bad Loans (NPL) Dec '25
30.60%
▼ Down from 35.73% peak (Sep '25) · via rescheduling
GDP Growth FY26
3.5–4.7%
WB: 3.9% · ADB: 4.0% · IMF: 4.7% · FY25 actual: 3.49%
Global Signal
Overnight — What Reaches Dhaka by Monday Morning
| Brent Crude TradingEconomics · May 8 close | $101.29/bbl ▲ +1% Fri; weekly loss of ~6% as Trump insisted ceasefire holds despite fresh US–Iran clashes. Iran fired on UAE twice this week; US struck two Iranian tankers violating naval blockade |
| WTI Crude CNBC · May 8, 2026 | $95.42/bbl ▲ +marginal Fri; weekly loss >6%. ANZ: "risk of peace deal breaking down will keep markets volatile" |
| Strait of Hormuz Al Jazeera · May 5, 2026 | Effectively closed · ~11th week · ~14M bpd disrupted · ~20,000 seafarers stranded on ~2,000 vessels · IMO: "no precedent for the stranding of so many seafarers in the modern age" |
| Iran War / Ceasefire CNBC · May 8, 2026 | Ceasefire technically in force; US struck two Iranian tankers Friday. Iran fired missiles and drones at UAE twice this week. Trump: "just a love tap." Tehran awaiting US counter-proposal through Pakistan — no deal reached over weekend |
| IEA Warning IEA via TradingEconomics | War disrupting ~14M bpd from global supply · Post-conflict recovery will be slow: infrastructure damage, insurer reluctance, mine-clearing backlog. Chevron CEO: "fuel shortages a growing concern in some regions" |
| Goldman Sachs Goldman note via CNBC | Global oil stocks ~101 days of demand; could fall to 98 days by end-May. Sharpest product scarcity risks: South Africa, India, Thailand, Taiwan. Refined product buffers "being depleted rapidly" |
| Wall St (8 May close) Yahoo Finance · May 8 close | S&P 500 +0.84% → 7,398.93 (record) · Dow +0.02% → 49,609.16 · Nasdaq +1.71% → 26,247 · AI infrastructure and earnings drove weekly gains; week's best: +2.4% S&P |
| US Fed Rate Federal Reserve · Apr 29, 2026 | 3.50–3.75% · Held Apr 29 (3rd consecutive hold; historic 4-member dissent, first since 1992) · New Chair Kevin Warsh takes over Thursday, May 15. Markets price zero cuts for rest of 2026. BofA: "no cuts expected until H2 2027" |
| US CPI (this week) BLS · Release: Tue 12 May, 8:30 AM ET | March CPI: 3.3% YoY (energy +10.9%, gasoline +21.2%) · April CPI due tomorrow (Tue May 12) · Forecast: ~3.7–3.8% YoY · Core CPI forecast: ~2.7%. JPMorgan: inflation stays above 3% until Feb 2027 regardless of scenario |
| Bitcoin Yahoo Finance · May 10 futures | ~$81,595 ▲ +1.15% Sunday futures; recovering after dipping below $80K on Iran strikes last week. VIX at 17.19 |
| US–China Trade Reuters / TradingEconomics | US tariffs on China ~45%; BD RMG exporters positioning for order diversion. Garment investment into Bangladesh tracking higher this quarter on China tariff opportunity |
| BD–US Tariff US Embassy Dhaka · May 4 | 19% base rate · ART implementation talks held May 5–7 (USTR Brendan Lynch, Dhaka) · Legal challenge to ART before High Court. Zero-tariff on US-cotton apparel terms still being finalised |
| India–BD Relation Daily Star / ADB reports | India supplying diesel via pipeline · BD seeking $3B additional ADB support for energy cost overruns · West Bengal state elections closely watched in Dhaka |
| Asian Markets Yahoo Finance · May 9–10 | Japan Nikkei at record highs on AI earnings and ceasefire extension optimism · Monday open expected to track Wall St record close; crude futures +3% weekend suggests oil pressure returning |
| Israel–Lebanon CNBC / Reuters · Apr 9 | Israel agreed to negotiate with Lebanon · Fragile parallel front to Iran ceasefire — no deal yet. Iran's Parliament Speaker accused US of violating 3 elements of the 10-point truce proposal |
| Saudi / RMG YTD Bloomberg / CNBC · May 5 | Iraq offering steep crude discounts for Hormuz-transit buyers · BD garment exports tracking strong YTD on China order diversion |
AI This Week
Practical Intelligence — Never Hype
For Your Work
OpenAI's ChatGPT for Excel and Google Sheets became generally available on May 5 for all plan levels, including free. You type plain-language instructions in a sidebar inside your spreadsheet — "build a 3-year cash flow model," "find the error in this VLOOKUP," "summarise this 40-tab sales file" — and it edits your cells directly. No copy-paste. Runs on GPT-5.5. For Dhaka's finance, consulting, and operations professionals who spend hours in spreadsheets, this is the most immediately practical AI release of 2026. The productivity gap between people who learn this early and those who do not will be visible to managers within weeks. How to access: Excel ribbon → Add-ins → search "ChatGPT", or sheets.new → Extensions → ChatGPT for Sheets.
ORAWEK Note
A Real Observation. From a Real Person.
“
Monday morning. Two stories from TBS this weekend sat next to each other on the homepage and almost nobody is connecting them. Bangladesh has overtaken China in the US apparel rankings — and in the same data, our own exports fell 8.38%. We ranked higher because China collapsed, not because we gained. Vietnam and Cambodia took the orders. Meanwhile, the premium consumer market at home is in a quiet recession. Shops in Gulshan are running 70% discounts. P&G left. Shelves that used to carry Ferrero chocolates are now empty or replaced. Inflation has been above 8% for four years, and wages have trailed for 50 months in a row. The same economy that cannot capture an export opportunity abroad is losing purchasing power at home. Both stories point to the same structural gap: Bangladesh needs to move up the value chain — in garments, in consumer goods, in everything — and it is not moving fast enough. Kevin Warsh takes over the US Federal Reserve on Thursday. The April CPI prints tomorrow. A big week for global numbers. But the numbers that matter most are already on the page.
— Founder · Monday morning · Dhaka