"Bangladesh’s main industry is battered by blackouts and rising costs", 25 June 2026

...Bangladesh remains desperately short of power. Its garment factories, especially, have been running low on it....Rising costs are squeezing the businesses. On June 6th Al-Muslim Group...sacked nearly 1,900 people from its knitwear and denim factories...

In May the government was cutting power for two hours a day on average in and around Dhaka. In Chattogram...blackouts lasted as long as eight hours a day. Some factory owners have turned to diesel-powered generators...“even the 10-15 minutes needed to turn them on can be costly”, says Abil Bin Amin of Bangladesh’s Ethical Trading Initiative. Production fell nearly 30% between February and May.

Global brands are placing fewer orders, deterred by production delays, shipping disruptions and...Western shoppers who have stopped buying so many clothes. Abdullah Hil Nakib, who owns a jacket factory in Dhaka, says that orders for his wares have dropped by a fifth since the war started...

Pricier oil has pushed up the cost of materials....And the industry is highly fragmented...Mr Nakib estimates he is paying 30% more for transport...

...at least 9,500 workers, at some 80 factories, are reckoned to have lost their jobs since January....