Impact after Covid-19 in Bangladesh
Impact after Covid-19 in Bangladesh
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, some will become seriously ill and require medical attention. Older people and those with underlying medical conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or cancer are more likely to develop serious illness. Anyone can get sick with COVID-19 and become seriously ill or die at any age.
Table of Contents
Introduction
- Impact on Readymade Garments and Remittances
- Impact on Financial Sector
- Impact on small Businesses and Star-ups
- Government Initiatives to Tackle Pandemic Challenges
Resilience Building
- CTA
- Conclusion
- FAQ
Introduction
Impact on Readymade Garments (RMG) and Remittances
The Outbreak of COVID-19 is the worst pandemic in the world for years (Onyema et al., 2020). According to The International Labour Organization (ILO) around 24.7 million jobs will be disappeared due to COVID-19 (McKeever, 2020). Like the other developed and developing countries, Bangladesh is also one of them who will be affected higher than anyone. Due to this epidemic, Bangladesh's apparel industry has been particularly affected, as the majority of the workers are women, who have no job security. Because practically the entire world is closed down, there is no change in revenue for garment brands and customers.
Because of the financial losses incurred by buyers and brands, the suppliers' orders are cancelled and six (6) billion orders have been postponed (Kamruzzaman & Sakib, 2020, March 26). The workers in the Ready-made garments industry were affected by the order cancellation. Workers were not paid their legal wages. According to a survey, 72.4 percent of Bangladeshi manufacturers were unable to provide some form of income to their workers when they were furloughed. When order cancellations resulted in worker dismissals, 80.4 percent of Bangladeshi suppliers stated that they were unable to compensate the workers (Anner, 2020). The Managing Director of Denim Expert Limited, Mr. Mostafiz Uddin assumed that a few apparel workers might get job losses due to the COVID-19 (Noyon, 2020, May 13). The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimated that 894,930 workers in Bangladesh would lose their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 (Perera, 2020). According to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), more than 70 factories were closed in the last year and 1,200 in the previous four years as a result of brand and buyer factory remediation initiatives following the Rana Plaza collapse, which resulted in the firing of more than 50,000 workers (Perera, 2020). So, the apparel workers are those who are the ultimate affected by any major incident in the apparel industry.
H & M, the country's greatest buyers of RMG, are cutting ties with their suppliers in Bangladesh, all of which means that they are shutting their factories and growing their costs by hundreds of millions of dollars. Major retailers H & M, Zara, and M & S, and Primark have all decided to stay closed in the wake of the current supply shortage of Bangladeshi RMG garments. The global COVID-19 phenomenon affected both purchasing habits and the capacity for discretionary spending, bringing commerce to a complete halt.Click here to view Figure
The recent explosion of the foreign companies have been undergoing has impacted its ability to purchase more Bangladeshi apparel, hence, and now H & M is having to "temporary stop" the expansion of orders and to review its current ones. perception, non-perception While it has committed to making payments to provide items before the global pandemic, H & M is additionally involved in the delivery of various orders from abroad that have been anticipated before the outbreak (Mina et al., 2020; Rahman & Ishty, 2020). According to data from the Bangladesh Textile Manufacturers and Exporters' (BGME), $300 million worth of Primark orders a month equates to 2 million monthly wages for all the industry's garment staff. The disease impacts global production chains, buyer demand, of course, and furthermore, the wellbeing of employees, as well, and it is predicted to have lost about $4.2 billion in export sales by the end of the fourth quarter if it persists at the current rate (Bain, 2020, March 21).
Impact on Small Businesses and Start-ups
The outbreak of Coronavirus has put almost every country in the world on lockdown, including Bangladesh. People are losing their jobs as economies slow down, and a large number of low-income people are falling into extreme poverty. E-commerce businesses are also facing difficulties as a result of transportation restrictions and consumer concerns about being infected by delivery men. E-commerce sites were also unable to source products at first because all of the stores were abruptly closed. Fashion, IT services, cosmetics, dairy products, household stationery, cleaning supplies, sanitizers, and health products are just a few examples (Hasan, 2021, Jan 25). Although all of the products were eventually made available to e-commerce sites in certain circumstances, they continued to suffer as the majority of the delivery men failed to provide commodities on due time to customers. All of these challenges were only temporary, and as time passed, e-commerce site traffic began to rise (Hussain et al., 2021).
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in ensuring economic development and achieving desired growth. The government is working hard to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in the SME sector, which is characterized by low capital and short production cycles. The government is putting in place priority programs to develop small and medium-sized businesses, particularly among women, as well as industrial workers in rural and marginal areas. The government has adopted several incentive packages for micro, cottage, and small and medium enterprises, including low-interest working capital facilities worth Tk. 20,000 crore, the majority of which have already been implemented, to address the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the government's initiatives in the SME sector are fully implemented, it is expected that this sector's contribution to the national economy will rise to 32% by 2024 .
Government Initiatives to Tackle Pandemic Challenges
To combat the outbreak of pandemic COVID-19, almost every nation is employing vigorous non-therapeutic interventions. Bangladesh has gone down the same path as the rest of the world (Islam et al., 2020). The government of Bangladesh has taken many significant measures to fight COVID19, including 1) the creation of a national COVID-19 response committee led by the Minister of Health; and 2) the establishment of a national COVID-19 response committee led by the Minister of Health. 3) cancellation of the grand inauguration ceremony of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's birth centenary celebration programs; 4) closure of all government and private offices; 5) closure of all educational institutions in the country; 6) prohibition of all public gatherings and transportation services; 9) cancellation of the Bangla New Year celebration on April 14; 10) cancellation of the 50th Independence Day celebration event; 11) operation of the ‘Rice for Tk. 10 per KG (approximately 12 cents/kg rice)' initiative for vulnerable citizens around the country Furthermore, the civic society, philanthropists, and wealthier members of society are generously aiding the deprived class of society by providing nutritious and financial assistance (Kamol, 2020, Mar 09).
Among the several initiatives put forward by the government in an overall USD 11.90 billion package for business, small and medium enterprises, cottage industries, doctors, and the homeless have also got one. The funding is in place to help safeguard the country's food and nutritional security by means as well as homeless people with the medical establishment, nurse, nurse, and the agricultural healthcare component of USD 10 million (Desk, 2020, April 13). Though the corona virus had been identified after five months, treatment in Bangladesh was considered too dangerous and impractical because of the level of immobility and inability to coordinate their diagnosis and treatment (Bain, 2020, March 21). However, although there are shortcomings and issues with the overall health care system in Bangladesh, they are trying to improve it by increasing access and standardizing care that is good enough that a few people among the general population are now suffering from the consequences of a horrible health event like the coherence 19th century pandemic, maybe because the scheme has fallen out of control the public health authorities were engaged in an extensive pandemic preparatory task to meet the COVID-19 pandemic campaign in the course of which they were preparing to handle any possible planning The worst symptoms of this kind of an administration are obvious on the ground: Teamwork within the different government agencies is poor, and effective policies are often ignored or overridden by politicians and their staffers (Zahid, 2020, May 10). Furthermore, governments are unable to effectively control the people coming into the country since they are prohibited by the Government from travelling from the CON-19 nations (Anwar et al., 2020). Although identifying those infected with COVID-19 was a must, departments were plagued with confusion in the government of Bangladesh, other important actions had to be taken to address the issue, such as airports must organize themselves and adopt steps to discover whether any other passengers had it. To address the major challenges in Dhaka and Sylhet, however four more outbound departures were made via the Bangladesh's border crossings with other countries were outfitted with scanners and one in Chottogram while another five were obtained through Bangladesh's border crossings with other countries' outlets, confirmatory testing for any contaminants or microbiological evidence on passenger blood may be done since no procedures for disinfection were completed and no samples could be taken from any of the passenger.
Bangladesh initially announced the implementation of a lock down for ten days in order to be enforced. Nearly a thousand service holders and factories were already being transported (usually from villages such as Gazipur and Narayanganj) prior to the time of the initial lock down, and some decided to travel long distances, despite the threat of the H3N2 bird flu outbreak, i.e., from Dhaka. The general evacuation and dispersal later, the government made an order for citizens to return to their dwellings within 500 miles of the lower 48 states, and these people began to return home to their original homes from outside of the 48 states (Anwar et al., 2020). Or, when almost all, including the small business owners, felt the economic impact would be too great to be avoided, the government granted an exception and agreed to a somewhat low rate of recovery to allow them to stay open
Dhaka has a large population at some periods of the year, but at other times, Eid-Ul-Fitr is an important for expatriates who are emigrants as well, since there is far less pressure on their countries' hospitality at this time. Government agencies, in not having been able to establish proper cooperation among authorities and departments, has allowed illegal activities to expand because of its delay in enforcement of controls (Anwar et al., 2020). Use of caps, gowns, plastic coveralls, and shoe covers to acquire private security equipment and regular respirators was fraud on the part of a section of the ministry of health (Ullah, 2020, April 18 ), notable, who was among the 40,000 health care professionals being charged with selling counterfeit COVID-19 credentials, with more than 1,400 of those people found to be involved in criminal activity (Sumon, 2020, July 11)
CTA
For more Covid information
Conclusion
Today, fearful economic times call for more responsible and proactive leadership in the healthcare sector as well as governments and the broader community demand be prepared for all possible scenarios. Troublesome efforts should be provided until now, such as extra nourishment, smaller ration packs, and a tighter supply, and then expanded as required. After this crisis, the government must address medium and long-term issues to return the economy to equilibrium and also encourage development. In addition, a large socioeconomic development plans that promote micro-businesses and protect ecologically sensitive models should be included in order for more efficient and eco-friendly business-based models to thrive. It is wise that governments and financial organizations stay on their toes and consistently meet and keep their promises (Islam, 2020, March 11). Bangladesh, as a lower-middle-income country, has numerous limitations in restricting the spread of the virus, so far preparedness is the key to addressing any health crisis. The country has to expand its testing and healthcare facilities while continuing the lockdown at any cost with stricter maintenance.
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