Bangladesh Eyes $10 Billion in UK Exports by Moving Beyond Garments

Bangladesh sells Britain a lot of T-shirts and very little else. That imbalance is the starting point for a $10 billion question officials and exporters discussed in Dhaka this week, how much bigger the UK market could get for Bangladesh if garments stopped being almost the whole story.

• Bangladesh holds just 0.49% of the UK's import market. Reaching 1% would be worth an estimated $10 billion in exports.
• Non-garment goods make up only about 6% of what Bangladesh currently sells to the UK.
• A UK trade scheme called the DCTS will keep 98% of Bangladesh's exports duty free even after it loses its least developed country status.
• Officials say the main barriers now are standards, certification and awareness, not tariffs.

Why garments crowded out everything else

Readymade garments have been Bangladesh's signature export for decades, and that success has a side effect, it has left little room in exporters' attention, and in buyers' perception, for anything else. At a workshop titled "Exporting to the UK: Opportunities Beyond RMG," held at the DCCI auditorium and organised by the Export Promotion Bureau, the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the British High Commission, officials put a number on just how lopsided that mix has become, non-garment products account for roughly 6% of Bangladesh's exports to the UK, with clothing making up nearly everything else.

Mohammad Hasan Arif, vice chairman and chief executive of the Export Promotion Bureau, used his keynote to point at specific categories where he sees real demand waiting, processed food, pharmaceuticals, footwear and furniture. His message was not that garments should shrink, but that everything else should grow to match the UK's actual appetite for Bangladeshi goods.

The math behind the $10 billion figure

The headline number comes from a simple calculation, Bangladesh currently holds about 0.49% of the UK's total import market. If that share doubled to roughly 1%, officials estimate the resulting exports would be worth around $10 billion a year. Getting there does not require shrinking garment exports, it requires adding enough new categories, and enough new buyers, that Bangladesh's total footprint in UK shops and warehouses roughly doubles.

That is a large gap to close, and speakers at the workshop were candid that tariffs are no longer the main obstacle. Taskeen Ahmed, president of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, called for exporters to invest in quality, international certification, product traceability and branding, framing these as the real gatekeepers to UK shelves now that preferential access already exists for most goods.

What changes, and does not, after LDC graduation

Bangladesh's graduation from least developed country status has loomed over trade policy conversations for years, and the UK side used this workshop to deliver some reassurance. Under the UK's Developing Countries Trading Scheme, which covers 65 least developed and developing countries, Bangladesh will keep duty free access for 98% of its exports, including garments, even after graduation. Exporters will also still be able to source raw materials from any of 95 eligible countries for their supply chains and ship the finished product to the UK duty free, as long as they meet the scheme's rules of origin.

"Continued market access after LDC graduation gives businesses the certainty they need to plan and invest," said James Goldman, acting British High Commissioner to Bangladesh.

Ellie Parker, the British High Commission's regional trade for development adviser, led a technical session walking exporters through how to actually claim DCTS benefits, covering market access rules, how preferential tariffs are claimed in practice, and documentation exporters often get wrong. The Export Promotion Bureau said it plans to publish a comprehensive DCTS guidebook covering eligibility and rules of origin, alongside further workshops in Dhaka and Chattogram in the coming months.

What exporters still need to fix

A separate push reported this year by The Daily Star reinforced the same point from the exporter side, industry groups have been asking for wider and simpler use of the DCTS rather than any new tariff deal, arguing that many firms that qualify for preferential rates still do not use them correctly, or at all, because of paperwork and standards gaps rather than any trade barrier the UK has put up.

A panel following the keynotes brought together customs officials and representatives from footwear and leather, seafood, agro-processing and packaging, each working through the practical side of the problem, testing requirements, certification timelines, and how to document a product's origin well enough to survive a UK customs check. DCCI vice president Md Salem Sulaiman and several EPB officials sat in on the discussion.

Measure	Figure
Bangladesh's current UK import market share	0.49%
Target market share	1%
Estimated export value at target share	$10 billion a year
Non-garment share of current UK exports	about 6%
Share of exports kept duty free under DCTS after LDC graduation	98%

What it means for you

For a garment factory owner, this is a reminder that the UK market is not closing after LDC graduation, the preferential terms that made Bangladesh competitive largely survive through the DCTS, so the planning question is less about losing access and more about whether your factory has the certifications UK retailers will keep demanding. For an entrepreneur or small exporter outside garments, in food processing, leather goods, furniture or agro-products, this is a rare moment when a government agency is explicitly naming the categories it thinks have room to grow, and offering free guidance on how to use a tariff scheme most firms are not using to its full extent.

If your business imports UK goods or pays suppliers in pounds as part of this trade relationship, it is worth checking current exchange rates with the site's currency converter before locking in a quote, since a weaker or stronger taka can change the real cost of a deal as much as any tariff does.