Necessity compels ...

Shipments pile up at Chittagong Port. In the 1990s, exporters found ways to run their factories at night and still make shipments and hold onto their customers.Photo: STAR

Amidst a flood of reports on collapsing banks, global meltdown and vanishing jobs, The Daily Star delivered good news, “Local RMG carves niche in Chinese market”, on Sunday.
After all the recent gloomy reports on the Bangladesh economy and exports in particular, this report brought to mind Mark Twain's words: “reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated”.
In the face of the global economic crisis, we have many reasons to fear for the business community of Bangladesh. Yet in the past, each time we were confronted by a new challenge to grow, a new obstacle on our road to progress, a new reason to fail, it seemed to galvanise us to greater innovation, sacrifice and entrepreneurship.
Maybe it is to do with the land we love so dear and the air we breathe. After all, one of the harsh realities of life on a delta, at the confluence of some of the most important river systems in the world, is that we are predisposed to being afflicted by floods and natural disasters with callous regularity. From this resilient soil emanates this never say die spirit of the Bangladeshi entrepreneur, which helps overcome obstacles that would fell lesser beings.
Faced by the challenges of a looming population explosion and shrinking arable land, Bangladeshi farmers have helped bring about an invisible revolution, taking us from breadbasket to food autarky status, in less than three decades. Of course there have been major external inputs such as improved irrigation technology and new seed varieties, but these have also been provided to other nations without such success. Today our farmers deliver three rice crops a year, a rarity in the world, and have even started to grow rice in brackish water and flood prone areas. Each of these farmers is an entrepreneur and a businessman even if he may not be called one. And despite major calamities, Bangladesh can now feed itself, and it is a credit to their prowess.
Moving form the unheralded farmer, to the much heralded garment exporter, all the abuse that we heap on them for exploiting labour, seeking profit at any cost and lack of social conscience, no one can deny that they have also transformed Bangladesh. Seizing on an opportunity created by the troubles in Sri Lanka, in two decades they have created the second largest ready made garments (RMG) industry in the world. They have put down initial non believers, targeted whisper campaigns by competitors, the stigma of child labour, lack of any support industry or export infrastructure, the much feared end of the MFA (quota) regime and each time we have been told that they are out for the count, they have come back swinging and fighting.
Today our export industry is facing new and difficult challenges but our resolve is tempered with the steel of past experiences. When naysayers predicted the demise of the RMG export industry due to child labour issues, the industry acted and turned adversity into strength. The joint programme by the Bangladesh Garments Manufactures and Exporters Association (BGMEA), ILO and the government has been universally acclaimed as a success even as many so called developed nation competitors struggle with this same issue.
Faced with endless hartals in the 90's, our exporters found ways to run their factories at night and still make shipments and hold onto their customers. I pray we never see those dark days again but I will never forget how we escorted convoys of imported inputs from ZIA to Shafipur after midnight and used those same trucks to bring finished goods back to ZIA for shipment.
Only two years ago, faced by a nationwide “aborodh” during the Dhaka visit of the vice president one of the largest US retailers, we rented a helicopter to help him commute back and forth from the factory rather than cancel the visit. Today they are our largest clients in the US. Before our politicians start jumping down my throat with cries of “I told you so” and how hartals do not affect business, let me make one thing clear: we did what we had to because we had no choice. Needs must. But it make at a cost- not just financial or economic but also human and reputation. We should not forget that all businesses cannot afford such costs and no business can afford to sustain such costs for long.
The overlying point is, time and time again, Bangladeshi business communities, like the Bengal tiger, has shown that it is most dangerous when cornered.
I was proud to call myself a member of the business community the day it was reported that shop keepers in a market notorious for protection money and extortion by ruling party goons, had organised themselves with sirens, warning systems and stout sticks. I am not espousing vigilantism but these small business owners went from pillar to post seeking redress; finally faced with extinction, they were forced to react in a manner that you may call illegal but I call inevitable. Today their market is “chanda” free.
Not only locally, but internationally our business community has shown a heart disproportionate to our size. The case of our leading battery exporter going toe to toe with India in Geneva is now stuff of legend. Rahimafrooz successfully faced and overcame a dumping case by India, the worlds largest proponent of anti dumping cases in the WTO, overcoming a deliberate attempt by our largest trading partner to block access to their market for our fledgling battery exports.
Bangladesh is today exporting organic tea to England, leather shoes to Italy and seafood to France. Our pharmaceutical industry meets 97 percent of local demand, our GSM market is one of the fastest growing in the world. And the world is starting to take notice.
All of this has been in spite of the government and not because of the government: sheer entrepreneurial zeal breaking the local bureaucratic shackles and overcoming our international image deficit.
In the last one week, I heard how one of our largest and fastest growing pharmaceutical companies is negotiating with a US company to set up research facilities in Bangladesh, how a garments unit is trying to tie up with Turkish counterparts to produce high end designer knitwear, how local brand consultancies are trying to bring in some of the brightest minds in the business globally to speak to our corporate leaders on hyper competition.
So make no mistake, this crisis will hit us and maybe even hurt us but it will never break us. Because sometimes it is only when we stare defeat in the face that we find the strength in ourselves to stare it down and win.

The writer is the managing director of Apex Adelchi Footwear Ltd and welcomes feedback at [email protected].