Bangladesh’s Vital Garment Industry Struggles Amid Global Energy Crunch

Employees work in the sewing section at the Yarn Dyeing Limited factory, amid the energy crisis, in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sept.

17, 2026. —Mohammad Ponir Hossain—Reuters It’s 11 a.m. at Ha-Meem Group’s Ashulia garment factory north of Dhaka and every floor is a whirlwind of feverish labor.

Industrial jigsaws slice stacks of denim into precise panels, which nearby seamsters then stitch into jeans, skirts, and jackets.

Next comes washing, ironing, and affixing buttons and zips before the brand labels are attached—Gap, American Eagle, and JCPenney are major clients—and the finished garments are stacked into boxes by some of the group’s 90,000 staff, who together produce 9.3 million apparel items every month.

Read more: What Bangladesh’s New Leader Tarique Rahman Means for South Asia and the World But suddenly the lights flicker, the workshop dims for a moment, and then full illumination returns accompanied by four cacophonic British-made diesel generators, which automatically splutter into life whenever the gas supply weakens.

“In Bangladesh, the grid electricity is bad, there are frequent interruptions,” says Tanul Chakraborty, head of power, energy and environmental sustainability for Ha-Meem Group.

“After gas the most reliable energy in Bangladesh is diesel.

Grid electricity is third.

Almost the entire economy moves on diesel.” It’s a startling admission given that Bangladesh’s economy is worth $510 billion, South Asia’s second-largest after India.

But the nation is in the grip of a severe power crunch, as wars in Ukraine and Iran expose the fragility of its growing dependence on imported fuel.

Since Russia’s invasion, industrial gas prices have risen by 150%, and diesel by about 70%.

Since the Iran war began, the cost of spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) has nearly tripled.

People line up at a petrol station in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sept.

1, 2026, to purchase diesel for generators as an alternative source of electricity amid the power shortage. —Maruf Rahman—NurPhoto/Getty Images That’s bad news for a garment industry that is the country’s largest source of formal employment , directly providing 4 million jobs and supporting countless more livelihoods, while generating $38.7 billion last year—over 80% of export earnings. (Ha Meem alone accounted for $1 billion of exports.) But the strain extends across the Global South, where developing nations struggle with a prolonged energy crisis that disproportionately squeezes the planet’s most deprived.