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Beyond duty-free: Bangladesh, Cambodia brace for post-LDC era
Apparel/Garments
Beyond duty-free: Bangladesh, Cambodia brace for post-LDC era
04 Jul '26
4 min read
Pic: Generated by ChatGPT
Insights
As LDC graduation redraws the trade map, the real test for apparel exporters is staying ahead without the old safety nets.
Experts say the new currency of competitiveness is reliability, quality, resilient supply chains and industrial upgrading.
In this next chapter, success would not be tariff-driven; it will be powered by productivity, innovation and efficiency.
Graduation from the Least Developed Country (LDC) category is often celebrated as a development success story. Yet for some nations, whose economic rise has been powered by garment exports, the transition also raises a difficult question: what happens when the special advantages that helped build competitiveness begin to erode?
That question looms particularly acute for Bangladesh and Cambodia.
As LDC graduation redraws the trade map, the real test for apparel exporters is staying ahead without the old safety nets.
Experts say the new currency of competitiveness is reliability, quality, resilient supply chains and industrial upgrading.
In this next chapter, success would not be tariff-driven; it will be powered by productivity, innovation and efficiency.
Both countries have benefited significantly from duty advantages, allowing their exports to enter key markets at preferential rates. For Bangladesh, the challenge is especially significant. The country, the world’s second-largest apparel exporter and also one of the largest users of LDC trade preferences, is expected to face significantly higher tariffs once preferential access is withdrawn.
Historically, exporters in these countries have benefited from two fundamental advantages: competitive
