Many small and medium scale manufacturing units–mostly operate subcontracting orders–located in major industrial belts, that had faced closure during the first wave of Covid-19 are yet to resume operations, according to Industrial Police data. They are facing an order crisis that led them to keep the operation pause could not resume operations yet.
A total of 630 factories in Dhaka, Gazipur, Chattogram, Narayanganj and Khulna, remained closed from the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the country in March 2020.
Some 16 factories are located in different export processing zones under the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEZA), the rest 389 are non-RMG factories, the data showed.
There are 7,982 factories in the six industrial zones that are overseen by the IP purview. Over 4800 are non-RMG factories.
Due to the COVID pandemic, the small and medium-sized factories have gone out of business through the big ones are somehow surviving.
As many of the factories did subcontracting jobs, they did not have regular banking activities and, as a result, they did not get support from the banks in the crisis period, according to an industry expert. Some more factories may face closure in the coming months if the current situation prolongs.
