HSBC Bangladesh Launches 10th Export Excellence Awards, Urges Diversification Beyond RMG

Dhaka, August 18, 2026 — HSBC Bangladesh today launched the 10th edition of its Export Excellence Awards at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka, calling on Bangladeshi exporters to look beyond the readymade garment (RMG) sector and scale up operations in emerging export industries. The awards programme, which has recognised 40 companies over the past nine years, is open for nominations until 20 September 2026 across four award categories covering both traditional and non-traditional exporters.

🏆 Four Award Categories

Exporters can nominate themselves across four categories, each with minimum annual export revenue thresholds:

• 👕 RMG Companies — minimum annual export revenue of $100 million
• 🧵 RMG Backward-Linkage Companies — minimum annual export revenue of $50 million (fabric, yarn, accessories, packaging)
• 🏭 Non-Traditional Manufacturing Sectors — minimum annual export revenue of $10 million (leather, jute, pharma, agro, plastics, electronics, ceramics, light engineering)
• 💼 Non-Traditional Services Sectors — minimum annual export revenue of $5 million (IT/ITeS, semiconductor design, BPO, engineering services, animation)

The programme is open to all enterprises operating in Bangladesh — regardless of whether they are HSBC customers — and carries no entry fee. Nomination forms and details are available at www.business.hsbc.com.bd/EEA2026.

👥 Why Diversification Matters Now

HSBC Bangladesh CEO Md Mahbub ur Rahman, speaking at the launch, stressed that exports have a "multiplier impact" on the economy by generating employment, foreign exchange, and investment. He warned that excessive dependence on a single sector makes the economy vulnerable and increases economic volatility — an unusually direct public acknowledgment from a foreign bank chief executive of the structural risk Bangladesh carries with RMG accounting for roughly 84 percent of merchandise exports.

"Export diversification has been talked about for a long time, and rightfully so," Mahbub said, adding that Bangladesh should build on the competitive advantage developed by the garments and textile industry while identifying other sectors where the country has, or can develop, a competitive edge. The awards have recognised 40 companies over the past nine years — 20 from garments and textiles and 20 from other industries — demonstrating that export excellence exists beyond RMG. But, he cautioned, these businesses need to scale.

"Other than garments and textile, maybe hardly one or two sectors have reached the billion-dollar mark. And then, it's a huge gap," Mahbub said. The comment is a candid reflection of how Bangladesh's non-RMG export basket — despite notable successes in pharmaceuticals, leather goods, jute products, frozen food and IT — still lacks a clear second pillar of the scale that Vietnam, Thailand or Indonesia have built in electronics, automotive components, agri-processing or services.

🤝 Strategic Partners

The 2026 awards are being organised with support from:

• 🏛 Ministry of Commerce — Government of Bangladesh, signalling alignment with national export strategy
• 🇬🇧 British High Commission Dhaka — reflecting UK-Bangladesh trade partnership, especially post-LDC graduation planning
• 📈 Ernst & Young (EY) — technical partner responsible for evaluation methodology and rigorous judging process
• 💼 HSBC Bangladesh — convener and lead sponsor of the awards

💡 Lessons From Past Winners

Past winners highlighted technology, skilled manpower, branding and market adaptation as the four key levers of export growth. The launch event brought together several leading exporters who shared their experiences:

• 🌾 Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, Chairman & CEO, PRAN-RFL Group — stressed value addition and global branding. PRAN-RFL is now one of Bangladesh's largest agro-processors and FMCG exporters, with operations across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
• 🤖 Asif Ashraf, Director & CEO, Urmi Group — said the company is using AI and robotic process automation (RPA) to improve efficiency and sustainability across its RMG manufacturing operations.
• 🔌 Enayetur Rahman, CEO, Ulkasemi — highlighted Bangladesh's potential in semiconductor design, citing its skilled workforce, but identified power reliability, internet infrastructure and data security as critical bottlenecks for the sector's growth.

🌐 The Bigger Picture: Bangladesh's Export Diversification Push

The 10th edition of the HSBC awards comes at a pivotal moment for Bangladesh's export economy. With LDC graduation expected in November 2026, the country will lose duty-free access to several markets — making diversification into higher-value, IP-driven exports not just an aspiration but an economic necessity. The government's five-year transformation plan, recently outlined by the General Economics Division (GED), envisions 8.5 percent annual GDP growth by 2031 — a target that cannot be met without a meaningful expansion of the non-RMG export basket.

Several policy moves are already aligned with this push:

• 📈 ERP/IT incentive policy — cash incentives for non-traditional IT/ITeS exports continue, with new sub-rates for AI, semiconductor design and animation services.
• 📜 Plastic EPR guidelines 2026 — the new Extended Producer Responsibility rules are pushing Bangladeshi plastic product manufacturers into global compliance, expanding addressable export markets.
• 💰 Popular Pharma $30.7m IFC loan — international finance is flowing into Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies expanding for regulated-market exports.
• 🌞 Rooftop solar 1,768 MWp potential — CPD estimates RMG factories alone can install 1,768 MWp of rooftop solar, freeing up grid capacity for new industrial users including semiconductor and electronics manufacturers.

⏳ The Scale-Up Challenge

The HSBC awards programme's underlying message — that export excellence exists beyond RMG, but scale remains the binding constraint — is one that resonates with policy advisors and industry leaders alike. Bangladesh has produced notable mid-sized exporters in pharmaceuticals (Beximco, Square, Incepta, Popular, Eskayef), leather (Apex, Jennys, Bay Footwear), agro-processing (PRAN-RFL, ACI), frozen food (Apex Foods, Rupali Sea Foods), and IT/ITeS (Tiger IT, Brain Station 23, Ulkasemi). But the leap from $10–50 million in annual exports to the $100 million–$1 billion scale that defines globally competitive national export champions has proven difficult — constrained by working capital, branding budgets, regulatory compliance costs, and access to long-term capital.

This is precisely the gap the HSBC awards programme is designed to surface. By recognising companies that have crossed the threshold and giving them visibility with policymakers, financiers and global partners, the awards create a virtuous cycle — past winners becoming role models that inspire the next cohort of exporters to aim higher. As Mahbub noted, export growth can also drive investment — citing the RMG sector, where exports helped spur investment in backward-linkage industries such as fabric and yarn. The same dynamic could unfold in pharmaceuticals (APIs), electronics (PCB assembly, semiconductors), leather (finished leather goods, design studios), and IT (product engineering, embedded systems) if the policy and financing ecosystem aligns.

✅ Nomination Process & Timeline

• 📅 Launch: 18 August 2026, Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka
• ⏳ Nomination deadline: 20 September 2026
• 🌐 Online portal: www.business.hsbc.com.bd/EEA2026
• 🤝 Open to: All enterprises operating in Bangladesh (HSBC and non-HSBC customers)
• 💰 Entry fee: None
• 📊 Evaluation partner: Ernst & Young (EY)
• 🏆 Categories: 4 (RMG, RMG backward-linkage, non-traditional manufacturing, non-traditional services)

For Bangladesh's export economy, the 10th edition of the HSBC Export Excellence Awards marks a decade of formal recognition that export talent exists well beyond the RMG sector — and a decade of slow but visible progress in building the second and third pillars of the country's export base. The challenge for the next decade will be converting recognition into scale, and scale into a diversified, resilient export portfolio that can carry Bangladesh through the post-LDC transition and into the upper-middle-income bracket the GED plan envisions for 2031.