Dhakaruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Ready-made garments & textiles
DBL Group, Ha-Meem, Beximco, Pacific Jeans, plus the buying offices of most global brands
Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garment exporter and the sector is roughly four-fifths of national exports. Most foreign professionals in Dhaka are here in sourcing, compliance, technical or buying roles for brands that do not own the factories.
Pharmaceuticals
Square Pharmaceuticals, Beximco Pharma, Incepta, Renata, ACI
Bangladesh manufactures the large majority of its own medicines and exports generics widely — a genuinely unusual position for a country at this income level, built on decades of policy and now a serious export sector in its own right.
Development & the NGO sector
BRAC, Grameen Bank, UN agencies, the World Bank, and the Cox's Bazar response
BRAC is the largest non-governmental development organisation in the world and is Bangladeshi. Between the domestic NGOs, the INGOs and the Rohingya response, this is one of the largest concentrations of development employment anywhere.
Banking, microfinance & fintech
BRAC Bank, City Bank, Eastern Bank, bKash, Nagad
bKash is one of the largest mobile financial services platforms in the world by users, and mobile money penetration here is deeper than in most middle-income countries. Grameen's microfinance model started in this country and still shapes the sector.
Technology & IT services
Therap BD, Brain Station 23, Kaz Software, Enosis, Samsung R&D Bangladesh
A growing software services and outsourcing sector concentrated around Karwan Bazar and the Janata Tower area, with the government's Hi-Tech Park programme trying to extend it. Smaller than India's or Pakistan's but rising fast.
Shipping, logistics & leather
Chattogram port operators, Summit Group, Apex Footwear, Bay Group
Chattogram handles the overwhelming majority of Bangladeshi trade and Dhaka runs the commercial side of it. Leather and footwear is the country's second-largest export sector after garments and is concentrated around Savar.
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