Bangladesh is considering staggered holidays for garment manufacturers to tackle a worsening power crunch caused by fuel shortages, according to a government minister.
The proposal involves asking factories to choose different days off instead of all of them remaining closed only on Friday, State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid said in an interview. “We sat down with business leaders on Sunday and they agreed to our proposal in principle,” he said.
The system of rolling holidays for different industrial areas is expected to reduce pressure on electricity demand as well as fuel oils for public transport, Hamid said. The South Asian nation, also the world’s No. 2 garments exporter after China, has resorted to power cuts to preserve fuel reserves amid war-induced energy price shocks, and separately approached multilateral lenders including the International Monetary Fund for loans to shore up its foreign reserves as import bills balloon.
