Editorial

When Washington issued its latest round of tariffs on 86 countries this year following investigations into labor practices, Bangladesh emerged with something rare: a competitive edge over its own rivals. Placed at the lowest tier of 10 percent, Bangladesh now undercuts China, Vietnam, and Thailand, each facing duties as high as 12.5 percent in the same US market. For an economy where garments and textiles dominate export earnings, that gap translates directly into opportunity, a chance to capture market share simply by staying where it is while competitors absorb higher costs.
The foreign ministry has credited the favorable tier to sustained progress on labor standards and continuing cooperation with the United States. But officials and economists alike are treating the moment as an opening rather than a guarantee. Sustaining the advantage, they argue, will depend on further gains in labor conditions, lower production costs, dependable energy supply, and entry into markets beyond the traditional US-EU axis; Russia, Latin America, Central Asia, and Africa among them. A proposed tariff rate quota covering Bangladesh alongside Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia could add further relief on Section 301 duties for cotton-based exports, potentially widening the opening still further.
This external tailwind arrives just as the government pushes forward its own long-term economic architecture. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has set a target of building a trillion-dollar economy by 2034, anchored in a strengthened private sector and sustained foreign investment. The plan leans on a defined set of sectors, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, advanced textiles, electronics, digital services, agro-processing, and logistics, paired with reforms aimed at simplifying tax administration, digitizing public services, and developing a skilled, productive workforce.
Rather than treat these ambitions abstractly, the prime minister has taken the pitch directly to investors, recently addressing roughly 600 delegates from Bangladesh and abroad at a conference in Dhaka. His message combined candor about existing challenges with confidence in the country’s assets: a large and rapidly growing domestic market, a young workforce, and a strategic location bridging South and Southeast Asia. He was equally direct about the government’s obligations in return, modern legal protections for investors, streamlined dispute resolution, simplified profit repatriation, and regulatory reform aimed at cutting through bureaucratic delay.
Momentum is building on the diplomatic front as well. Bangladesh’s growing economic relevance has not gone unnoticed regionally, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited Tarique Rahman to attend September’s BRICS summit in Delhi as a special guest, notable given Bangladesh sits outside the eleven-nation bloc. Closer ties with BRICS carry potential upside in financing access, market diversification, and reduced strain on foreign currency reserves, though they come bundled with familiar trade-offs, persistent trade imbalances with China and India, and the need to keep Western partnerships in equilibrium.
Even the country’s military profile tells a quietly reinforcing story. Global Fire Power’s most recent rankings place Bangladesh 40th out of 145 nations by military strength, and 12th among countries expanding capability fastest, a sign of a state building depth across multiple fronts rather than banking solely on economic momentum.
None of this guarantees an easy decade ahead. But between a temporary tariff edge, a defined economic roadmap, and rising diplomatic visibility, Bangladesh finds itself with a rare convergence of favorable conditions, the kind that reward decisive follow-through far more than caution.

The launch of the Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone (CEIZ) in Anwara marks a significant consolidation of Bangladesh’s economic diplomacy with China and a tangible step towards deeper strategic economic integration in the Bay of Bengal region. It showcases Dhaka’s ability to translate high level political understandings into concrete, job creating investment on the ground, reinforcing Bangladesh’s image as a capable and reliable partner.
The CEIZ embodies Bangladesh’s approach of using economic cooperation as a cornerstone of its foreign policy with major partners. By hosting a dedicated industrial zone for Chinese investors, Dhaka is signaling that it values stable, long term production linkages over one off projects, and is ready to provide a predictable environment for foreign capital and technology. The participation of senior members of the government alongside the Chinese ambassador and BEZA leadership at the foundation stone ceremony underscores that this is not merely an investment initiative but a flagship symbol of bilateral trust and strategic alignment.
Momentum following Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s June visit to China also highlights how Bangladesh is leveraging summit diplomacy to secure concrete economic deliverables. The progression from investment agreements signed during the visit to the developer arrangement with China Road and Bridge Corporation demonstrates a clear continuum from political engagement to operational partnership. This ability to move from commitments on paper to implementation on the ground strengthens Bangladesh’s credibility in the eyes of foreign partners and reinforces its reputation as a serious interlocutor in international economic cooperation.
The zone’s focus on advanced textiles, pharmaceuticals, light engineering, IT and other export oriented industries aligns closely with Bangladesh’s foreign policy objective of transitioning to a more diversified, higher value export basket. By offering Chinese firms a platform to serve regional and global markets from Bangladeshi soil, the CEIZ embeds Bangladesh more deeply into global supply chains. In return, Dhaka benefits from industrialization, technology transfer, and skills development, all of which support its long term development trajectory and enhance its bargaining position in trade and investment discussions.
For the ready made garment sector, the prospect of Chinese manufacturers producing fabrics, accessories and other raw materials inside Bangladesh carries important strategic implications. Reduced lead times and lower production costs will make Bangladeshi apparel more competitive internationally, strengthening the country’s standing with global brands and trade partners. As productive interdependence grows—Chinese capital and know how on one side, Bangladeshi labor, infrastructure and market access on the other—both countries gain stronger incentives to preserve a stable, cooperative relationship.
The CEIZ’s location near the Karnaphuli Tunnel, Chattogram Port and Shah Amanat International Airport further enhances Bangladesh’s profile as an emerging logistics and manufacturing hub in the Bay of Bengal. This signals to foreign partners that Bangladesh is investing not only in factories, but in the connectivity that underpins regional trade corridors and maritime cooperation. Over time, the zone can become a platform through which Bangladesh and China jointly serve wider markets across South Asia and Southeast Asia, opening space for broader regional economic initiatives anchored in Chattogram.
Crucially, the move from years of delay to active construction sends a positive message to the international community: Bangladesh is capable of delivering complex, government to government projects when political will, technical preparation and diplomatic engagement align. With expectations of around USD 500 million in FDI and more than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs, the CEIZ strengthens a narrative of Bangladesh as a confident, opportunity rich economy that engages major powers through pragmatic, win win partnerships. From a foreign policy perspective, this development supports Dhaka’s broader goal of positioning itself as a stable, forward looking actor in a rapidly changing regional and global economic landscape.

For decades, Bangladesh has been synonymous with a single economic narrative: the readymade garment sector, which successfully stitched the nation into the fabric of global commerce and lifted millions out of poverty. Yet, economic models anchored solely in low-cost manufacturing have a natural shelf life. As automation looms and global supply chains fracture, emerging economies face a stark imperative to transition from labor arbitrage to high-value innovation.
A quiet but profound recalibration is now underway in Dhaka. Speaking at the National Semiconductor Symposium and BEAR Summit, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman articulated a strategic ambition that extends far beyond domestic incrementalism: positioning Bangladesh as a serious player in the global semiconductor ecosystem.
For an international audience accustomed to viewing South Asia primarily through the lens of textiles or software outsourcing, this pivot may seem ambitious. Microchip fabrication and design represent the pinnacle of industrial complexity, demanding hyper-precise supply chains, intensive capital, and advanced engineering talent. Yet, the timing and structural conditions suggest this is more than empty rhetoric. With the global semiconductor market hurtling toward the one-trillion-dollar threshold, structural bottlenecks in traditional manufacturing hubs and geopolitical realignments have created an opening for agile, emerging economies to capture specialized segments of the value chain, particularly in IC design, verification, and deep-tech applications.
Crucially, the policy architecture sketched out in Dhaka reflects an understanding of what past industrial policies lacked. By abolishing duties on raw materials, introducing export incentives for design services, and establishing dedicated venture capital frameworks, the government is attempting to remove the friction that typically strangles nascent deep-tech ecosystems in the Global South. More importantly, the strategy leans into a vital transnational asset: the global diaspora of Bangladeshi technologists who have spent decades mastering these domains in Silicon Valley, Europe, and East Asia. Bridging this brain drain into a “brain gain” through collaborative summits and specialized infrastructure is precisely how nations like Taiwan and South Ireland engineered their economic miracles decades ago.
Challenges remain formidable. The global semiconductor landscape is fiercely competitive, dominated by entrenched capital and geopolitical gatekeeping. Skill shortages, energy demands, and the necessity of robust intellectual property regimes will test the administrative and educational capacity of the state.
Nevertheless, the significance of this moment lies in the intent. Industrial revolutions are rarely won by incumbents who grow complacent; they are seized by challengers willing to bet on the structural future rather than the economic past. If Bangladesh can successfully couple its demographic dividend with targeted fiscal incentives and genuine institutional reform, the microchip may well replace the garment as the engine of its next economic chapter, offering a blueprint for how a developing nation leapfrogs into the architecture of the twenty-first century.

The question of whether soldiers belong anywhere near a ballot box has animated democratic theorists since Athens first debated who should guard the assembly. Bangladesh’s Election Commission has now stepped into that old argument, quietly amending the legal definition of “law enforcement agency” to include the armed forces ahead of local elections due to begin later this year. The decision deserves scrutiny on its merits rather than reflexive alarm.
Start with what the Commission actually decided on July 22. Five measures were finalized: MPO-listed teachers barred from candidacy, loan defaulters and their guarantors disqualified, candidates with unpaid utility bills ruled ineligible, party symbols removed from local contests entirely, and the legal groundwork laid for possible military deployment, mirroring the framework already used in national elections. Read together, these are the instruments of an institution trying to raise the floor of electoral integrity, not lower it.
Critics of the army provision tend to argue from abstraction. They invoke the specter of intimidated voters, of a chilling effect on turnout, of civilian authority quietly ceding ground to men in uniform. These are legitimate theoretical concerns in the vacuum of political science seminars. Bangladesh, however, is not choosing between an idealized peaceful election and a militarized one. It is choosing between institutional preparedness and institutional naivety, and both the data and recent history make that choice fairly stark.
There is a structural reality here that critics often skip past. The police department that would ordinarily shoulder the full weight of election security has not fully recovered from the institutional collapse that followed the July-August 2024 uprising. In the chaos of that period, police stations across the country were attacked and vacated, officers went into hiding or walked off duty entirely, and the force effectively ceased functioning in large parts of the country for days. Rebuilding that institution, its manpower, its morale, its standing with the public, has been a slow process rather than an overnight fix. Asking a police force still mid-repair to single-handedly secure a nationwide cycle of local elections, without any reserve option, is not caution; it is wishful thinking dressed up as principle. Keeping the armed forces available as a legal backstop is a direct, sensible response to a real capacity gap, not an ideological preference for uniforms over badges.
Layered on top of that institutional strain is the raw violence data. The Human Rights Support Society’s July 2026 report counted 189 deaths from various forms of violence in the first half of this year, 56 of them explicitly political and 133 arising from mob violence. Over 5,000 people were injured in factional political disputes over the preceding twelve months. A country carrying that burden of unrest into a nationwide cycle of local elections, spanning union parishads through city corporations, cannot reasonably be asked to rely on an under-strength police force and hope as its security strategy.
What the Commission has actually built, though, is a contingency, not a mandate. Officials have said plainly that there is no intention to station troops at every polling booth as a matter of routine. Deployment, where it happens at all, will follow an assessment of how the first phase unfolds and what local conditions demand. Civilian police retain primary responsibility for order; the military exists as a reserve option written into law rather than an occupying presence written into practice. That distinction, between having the authority to act and choosing to exercise it, is precisely what separates prudent contingency planning from creeping militarization. Confusing the two flattens a nuanced policy into a caricature.
There is also a historical dimension worth weighing. A significant share of local government seats had been stripped of elected representatives and handed to appointed administrators under the previous administration, which makes the coming vote unusually consequential for restoring genuine local governance. Political parties, BNP among them, are already working at the grassroots to settle on single candidates and avoid the kind of internal rebellion that has fueled violence in past cycles. An electoral process this significant, arriving after both a representational vacuum and a policing vacuum, warrants more institutional caution than an ordinary vote might, not less.
None of this forecloses debate about where the line should sit, or about what safeguards should govern any eventual deployment, transparency in the decision-making process, clear rules of engagement, oversight mechanisms that prevent abuse. Those are the questions worth pressing the Commission on. But the underlying premise, that a country recording triple-digit political and mob-violence deaths within six months, with a police force still rebuilding from institutional collapse, should keep every available legal tool on the table for its most consequential local elections in years, is difficult to argue against in good faith.

The true spirit of July has increasingly been reduced to a simple narrative of regime change, but replacing rulers is not the same as transforming politics. Beyond merely removing an authoritarian government, the democratic energy of the uprising challenged multiple forms of discrimination, including class hierarchy, gender exclusion, religious bias, and entrenched power, offering a fleeting glimpse of politics accountable to the marginalized.
However, this expansive horizon narrowed rapidly as the collective agency of the streets was displaced. The contradiction first appeared not in constitutional debates, but in how political authority was reproduced; while workers, students, women, and Indigenous peoples created the democratic force on the streets, behind-the-scenes negotiations increasingly focused on managing state power and reorganizing it within the existing order. This shift away from popular sovereignty became glaringly exposed after August 5, followed by institutional silence regarding violence and a growing reliance on online attacks and disinformation to delegitimize dissent.
This transformation became particularly visible in the treatment of women. Having occupied an unprecedented political position during the uprising by breaking hall gates and challenging authoritarian rule, women quickly became targets in the struggle over post-July politics. Despite documenting degrading online abuse and calling for preventive action, no effective anti-harassment mechanisms or institutional accountability followed, allowing misogyny to function as an instrument to discipline and restrict political participation while reducing inclusion to mere performance.
Furthermore, July’s pluralistic legacy, built on the convergence of diverse social groups, was increasingly narrowed by an exclusionary religio-nationalist vocabulary. Incidents such as attacks on Indigenous students and cultural institutions like Chhayanaut and the Bangladesh Udichi Shilpigosthi reflected an ongoing effort to shrink the democratic boundaries that the uprising had briefly expanded. Ultimately, while the movement survives as a symbol, its leadership failed to channel that extraordinary collective energy toward a genuinely non-discriminatory Bangladesh, leaving the uprising separated from the very people who made it possible.

Every transition of power carries a ledger, and Bangladesh’s latest one arrived heavily in deficit. Speaking Saturday at a Bangladesh Maritime Academy Alumni Association event in Purbachal, Local Government Minister Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was direct about the inheritance: enormous sums, he said, were siphoned out of the country during what he termed the fascist regime, leaving the current government to assume power over an economy already fractured at its foundations.
Judged against that inheritance, the opening months read differently than the usual political scorecard suggests. Restoring an economy gutted by systemic theft is not a matter of quarterly targets; it’s closer to reconstruction after a controlled demolition, and Fakhrul’s own framing was that despite standing on such fragile ground, the government has made a promising start.
There is precedent worth invoking here, and it isn’t rhetorical flourish, it’s the one Fakhrul himself reached for. Bangladesh Nationalist Party has faced ruin before and answered it twice, first under martyred President Ziaur Rahman, later under former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, each instance offering proof that collapse doesn’t have to be the final word. The current leadership under Tarique Rahman, Fakhrul argued, is holding that same continuity, having already adopted a range of plans aimed at economic recovery.
What distinguishes this moment is a quieter shift in how governance is being conceived. Rather than treating the state as recovery’s sole engine, Fakhrul appealed directly to marine professionals to help the government capture the largely untapped potential of the blue economy, arguing that if professionals across sectors matched that spirit of cooperation, Bangladesh could travel considerably further under the current leadership.
The same day, at a separate seminar hosted by the Bangladesh-China Friendship Association at Sonargaon Hotel, Fakhrul extended this logic outward. He credited Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s recent China visit with consolidating what he called a historic friendship, one built on strategic partnership and multidimensional cooperation, and pledged that Bangladesh would stand alongside China as it elevates its business sector globally. Infrastructure, trade, investment, technology, education, health, agriculture, and cultural exchange, he said, are all set to expand between the two countries in the years ahead.
None of this erases the scale of what was taken. But an administration willing to name the theft plainly, while simultaneously producing the early architecture of recovery, on multiple fronts and in the same day’s work, is operating with more candor than the current mood of skepticism tends to credit.

The 5th BIMSTEC National Security Chiefs’ Meeting in New Delhi on 16 July was more than another regional security gathering. For Bangladesh, now chairing BIMSTEC since April 2025, its real significance lies in whether Dhaka can convert the meeting’s modest outcomes into lasting strategic leverage.

Chaired by India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, the meeting brought together security chiefs from all seven BIMSTEC states. Bangladesh was represented by Defence Adviser Dr AKM Shamsul Islam and High Commissioner M Riaz Hamidullah. BIMSTEC Secretary General Indra Mani Pandey briefed members on security sector progress, while Doval also held bilateral discussions with the Bangladeshi, Thai, Sri Lankan and Myanmar delegations on intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation.

The meeting produced maritime HADR guidelines and guiding principles for maritime law enforcement agencies during at sea interactions. Against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, conflict and technology driven, multi domain threats and with BIMSTEC approaching its 30th anniversary in 2027, these are modest but meaningful beginnings.

For Bangladesh, however, the real question is what happens next.

BIMSTEC is usually viewed through trade and connectivity. Yet its security mechanisms including the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime framework, the Expert Group on Maritime Security and the National Security Chiefs’ process offer Dhaka an unusual opportunity to shape regional priorities without becoming dependent on any single partner.

Bangladesh’s geography makes this especially important. Sitting between South and Southeast Asia, with a 4,096 kilometre border with India and a volatile frontier with Myanmar, the country is both a transit and destination point for narcotics, arms and human trafficking, while remaining among the world’s most disaster.prone coastal states. Its chairmanship provides procedural leverage that its relative economic and military weight would not otherwise guarantee, while the 2027 anniversary creates pressure for concrete deliverables.

Dhaka should use that window intelligently.

On border security, BIMSTEC can complement the BGB–BSF channel, which remains vulnerable to political fluctuations and incidents such as cross border shootings and alleged push-ins. Bangladesh should push for common verification procedures, surveillance and biometric cooperation, and documented reciprocal commitments against the use of one member’s territory against another. A multilateral platform would allow Dhaka to raise bilateral asymmetries without every issue becoming a bilateral grievance.

The maritime agenda offers an even greater opportunity. The newly adopted HADR and maritime law enforcement principles should be converted into operational white shipping information sharing and eventually a regional maritime fusion centre. With offshore gas, shipping and the blue economy central to Bangladesh’s future, anti-piracy and anti-IUU fishing cooperation are economic necessities. Dhaka must also ensure BIMSTEC’s maritime agenda does not become merely an extension of Indian Ocean naval priorities.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Bangladesh–India–Myanmar tri-border zone demand similar regional coordination. Golden Triangle linked narcotics routes, small arms flows and the movement of armed actors remain concerns regardless of the pace of the CHT Peace Accord. Multilateral intelligence and law enforcement cooperation would allow Bangladesh to address these threats without appearing to outsource internal security to a single neighbour.

Myanmar is more delicate. BIMSTEC cannot resolve its internal conflict, but it remains one of the few forums where Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Thailand meet. Dhaka should keep technical channels open on refugee flows, anti trafficking including through the existing BIMSTEC Sub Group on Human Trafficking and humanitarian logistics, without weakening its position on safe, dignified and sustainable Rohingya repatriation.

Cybersecurity must also move from discussion to structure. Bangladesh should push for a dedicated cyber sub group under CTTC, regional incident response protocols and pre-emptive threat intelligence sharing as financial systems, ports and critical infrastructure become increasingly networked.

Yet strategic activism must be balanced by strategic autonomy.

BIMSTEC’s security agenda risks appearing India centric given New Delhi’s influence, hosting role and agenda, setting weight. Bangladesh must insist on reciprocity in intelligence and technology cooperation, ensure that security collaboration is not interpreted as alignment against China or Myanmar’s military authorities, and keep Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan invested. A perceived India Bangladesh security vehicle would undermine BIMSTEC’s legitimacy.

Above all, Dhaka must demand deliverables rather than declarations: working groups, information,sharing protocols and joint exercises.

The New Delhi meeting produced modest outcomes, but it also created a template. Bangladesh now has the chairmanship, a regional security platform and a deadline before the 2027 anniversary. Its success will depend on whether it turns maritime guidelines into mechanisms, cyber concerns into institutions and border cooperation into reciprocal protocols.

The summit lasted a day. The strategic opportunity it offers Bangladesh could last far longer, but only if Dhaka chooses to use its chairmanship as leverage rather than ceremony.