Beyond a year on life-support, let’s carefully look to the future

Sometimes an industry needs a helping hand. It happened in many countries, at different junctures of history. Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh's RMG sector might not always be asking for intervention from the state, whether that be our national policymakers or international bodies. Often, the state is associated with bureaucracy, regulations, slowing things down and—in some cases—even corruption. Its well-acknowledged that without the support of public policy—finance, the Bangladesh RMG sector could have been facing quite a different scenario right now. Let me make clear first off, that already the industry is, in some areas, in a dire position. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost as factories have closed and lost billions of dollars' worth of orders. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.