Currently, Bangladesh is a dynamic, fast-growing market. Growth is driven by a large domestic consumer market, a rapidly expanding middle and affluent class and an impressive digital adoption rate.
The nation is now home to more than 2,500 startups, with about 200 more being added each year, focusing on a wide range of industries, including financial technology (fintech), logistics and mobility, and e-commerce. And there remains a thriving group of traditional companies and conglomerates that have for well over a decade played an important role in domestic and global supply chains for textile, apparel, light manufacturing, and aquaculture.
Despite this noteworthy commercial activity, Bangladesh is largely untapped, even as the country continues to show signs that it can be a powerful marketplace.
Economic growth and landscape
With an average annual GDP growth of 6.4% between 2016 and 2021, Bangladesh has outpaced Asian peers, such as India, Indonesia, and Philippines, and has performed significantly better than the global average of 2.9%. The country’s GDP per capita was ~$2,800 in 2022—already higher than India’s. And at its current growth rate, Bangladesh is on track to become an upper-middle-income country (at least ~$4,000 GDP per capita) by 2031.
Bangladesh also has an active domestic consumer market, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of GDP and is rapidly expanding due to a growing middle and affluent class. By 2030, this group of well-to-do consumers could encompass more than 34 million Bangladeshis, or about 15% of the population.
The combination of startup activity and expanding domestic VC streams has piqued the interest of large international VCs. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, FDI inflows to Bangladesh primarily from multinationals rose by nearly 13% in 2021 to $2.9 billion and held at around that level in 2022, even as slowing GDP gains and recession worries were being felt across the globe.
Source: bcg.com