Break the RMG Single-Basket Trap: A Product and Market Diversification Push Led by the Ministry of Commerce

Diagnosis

Bangladesh sells one thing to a few buyers. According to the curated note, ready-made garments account for 84% of exports, and those exports are concentrated in US and EU markets. That is a double concentration: one product category carrying the export economy, and a narrow set of destination markets carrying that product. A single basket carried by a single set of hands.

This matters now because concentration of this depth converts ordinary external shocks into national-scale shocks. A demand slump in the US, a tariff or rules-of-origin change in the EU, a compliance dispute, or a logistics disruption at the main gateway does not trim a slice of exports; it threatens the bulk of them. There is no second leg to stand on, and no third market to absorb the loss. A current concentration reading is not yet captured in the indicator (current_state is null), which itself is a gap: you cannot manage a risk you do not measure regularly. Diversification is slow to build and fast to need, so the work has to start before the shock, not after.

Recommended actions

1. Stand up a quarterly export-concentration dashboard. Owner: Ministry of Commerce (MoC). Mechanism: a standing MoC statistical product, fed by customs export data, that reports product-category share and destination-market share each quarter. Observable signal: the now-null concentration indicator is populated and published on a fixed quarterly calendar, with the garment share and the US-plus-EU market share tracked over time.
2. Cut the certification and standards bottleneck that blocks new products. Owner: MoC, executing through the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI). Mechanism: an MoC-BSTI workplan to expand internationally recognized testing and certification for non-garment export candidates (leather goods, footwear, light engineering, processed foods, IT-enabled services), so exporters can meet buyer-country standards without sending samples abroad. Observable signal: a rising count of products with in-country certification accepted by target buyers, and shorter certification turnaround.
3. Open new destination markets, not just new factories. Owner: MoC, with the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC). Mechanism: BTTC market-access analysis to identify tariff and non-tariff barriers in markets beyond the US and EU, feeding an MoC negotiating agenda for preferential access and bilateral arrangements. Observable signal: a falling US-plus-EU share in the dashboard as exports to newly negotiated markets appear in customs data.
4. Channel investment toward non-garment export capacity. Owner: MoC, coordinating with the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA). Mechanism: a BIDA investment-promotion track that prioritizes export-oriented projects outside ready-made garments, with a single-window facilitation line for those investors. Observable signal: new export-oriented projects approved and operating in non-garment categories, traceable in the dashboard's product mix.
5. Remove the gateway chokepoint. Owner: MoC, working with the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA). Mechanism: a CPA throughput and dwell-time improvement plan, because every new product and new market still ships through the same port, and a single congested gateway silently caps diversification. Observable signal: measured reductions in container dwell time and export clearance time at the main port.

Sequencing (first 12 months)

Start with the dashboard (action 1): you cannot steer diversification without a quarterly measure, and standing it up is the cheapest, fastest move. In parallel, begin the BSTI certification workplan (action 2) and the BTTC market-access analysis (action 3), because both have long lead times and unlock the rest. The dashboard establishes the baseline; the certification and market-access work create the supply-side and demand-side openings; BIDA investment (action 4) and the port plan (action 5) then have something concrete to serve. By month twelve the measurable win is a published concentration baseline plus a pipeline of certified products and identified target markets.

Risks and constraints

The binding constraints are political and fiscal. Garments are the incumbent: an organized, employment-heavy sector whose interests can crowd out diversification on the policy agenda, and any new market negotiation touches incumbent buyer relationships. Inter-agency coordination is the other binding constraint: MoC must align BSTI, BTTC, BIDA, and CPA, each with its own mandate and pace, and diversification fails quietly if any one of them stalls. Fiscally, certification capacity and port upgrades require sustained budget lines that compete with near-term priorities, and the payoff arrives slowly while the political clock runs fast.

Bottom line

With 84% of exports in ready-made garments sold mainly to the US and EU, Bangladesh is one shock away from a national export crisis, and the absence of even a current concentration reading shows the risk is unmanaged. The Ministry of Commerce should lead now: measure concentration quarterly, clear the certification, market-access, investment, and port bottlenecks in sequence, and turn a single basket into several.