Dhaka:

Garment factories in Bangladesh, forecast to account for 90% of the country’s exports, reopened on Wednesday hoping to swiftly resume full operations after production was disrupted by violent protests that ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina this week.

Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday after around 300 people were killed and thousands injured in a crackdown on student-led protests since July.

Garment and textile factories which supply major western brands such as H&M, Zara and Carrefour had been forced to shut under curfews.

“We lost a total of four days, it is too early to make an estimate of the loss. There was little physical damage to factories,” Miran Ali, vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told Reuters.

“I am hopeful that in the next few days, we will see complete normalisation,” he said. “I’m confident our buyers will stand by our side.”

He added that H&M, which buys from about 1,000 factories in Bangladesh, had already said it would not seek discounts due to the delays. The world’s second largest fashion retailer told Reuters on Wednesday its suppliers’ factories were gradually reopening and it welcomed steps taken for greater stability in Bangladesh.

At a factory belonging to apparel maker Urmi Garments in Dhaka, the mainly female employees were back operating sewing machines.

“We are poor people depending on daily wages and overtime. If we sit back home, how can we run our families?” 38-year old Razia Begum, an employee at the factory, told Reuters.

Factory manager Emdadul Haq said the factory had lost 228,000 pieces of production worth $107,000. In all, Urmi, which counts H&M, Japan’s Uniqlo and Britain’s Marks and Spencer among its clients, had lost about $2.2 million across three units, he said.

Though factories were reopening, there could be some damage to trade. Hula Global, an Indian apparel producer that serves Western clients, said on Monday it would redirect production for the rest of this year from Bangladesh to India to avert risk.

Pankaj Tuteja, Mumbai-based head of operations at Dragon Sourcing, which helps firms find suppliers, told Reuters that while it expected big brands such as Zara and H&M to stick with Bangladesh, some firms that looked elsewhere could stay away.

“Once the client, then the factories, have invested so much time and money they will not just immediately run back, even when there’s political stability. That can have a long-term impact for Bangladesh,” Tuteja said.

But Bangladesh would remain attractive because of costs that are 15-25% lower than elsewhere, and 0% tariffs, Tuteja added.

The International Monetary Fund expects the ready-made garments industry will account for 90% of Bangladesh’s $55 billion annual exports in the financial year 2024.

Bangladesh was the third-largest exporter of clothing in the world last year, according to the World Trade Organization.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Dhaka, Bangladesh:

Garment factories and banks reopened in Bangladesh Wednesday after authorities eased a curfew imposed to contain deadly clashes sparked by student protests over civil service employment quotas.

Last week’s violence killed at least 186 people, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, during some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.

Thousands of troops are patrolling cities around the South Asian country to keep order, and most Bangladeshis remain without internet nearly a week after a nationwide shutdown was imposed.

But with calm returning to the streets after several days of unbridled mayhem, the country’s economically vital textile factories resumed operations after government clearance.

“We were worried about the future of our company,” 40-year-old factory worker Khatun, who gave only one name, told AFP.

Despite the disruption, Khatun said she supported the demands of student protesters to reform government hiring rules and was shocked by last week’s violence.

“The government should implement all their demands,” she said. “A lot of them were killed. They sacrificed for future generations.”

The garment industry generates $50 billion in yearly export revenue for Bangladesh, employing millions of young women to sew clothes for H&M, Zara, Gap and other leading international brands.

A spokesperson for the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association told AFP that garment factories had resumed business “across the country”.

Hasina’s home minister Asaduzzaman Khan agreed to exempt textile workers from an ongoing curfew to allow them to return to work, the peak body’s spokesman said.

The curfew was eased Wednesday to allow some commerce to resume but remains in effect for most Bangladeshis for 19 hours each day.

Banks, the stock exchange in the capital Dhaka, and some government offices also opened between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm to match the daily break in the stay-home order, government spokesman Shibli Sadiq told AFP.

‘So much blood’ 

The student group which led this month’s protests has suspended demonstrations until at least Friday, with one leader saying they had not wanted reform “at the expense of so much blood”.

Police have arrested at least 2,500 people since the violence began last week.

Hasina’s government says the stay-home order will be relaxed further as the situation improves.

Broadband internet was being gradually restored on Tuesday evening but mobile internet — a key communication method for protest organisers — remained inoperative.

Internet connectivity across Bangladesh was still around 20 percent of normal levels, according to data published by US-based monitor Netblocks.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the June reintroduction of the quota scheme — halted since 2018 — deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s Awami League.

The Supreme Court on Sunday cut the number of reserved jobs but fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)