How Islampur stitched itself into Bangladesh’s textile trade

Once known for mango trading, Islampur grew into the country’s largest wholesale cloth hub, supplying fabric to markets across Bangladesh and beyond. Now, rising costs, import constraints and online competition are forcing its traders to rethink an old way of doing business

Islampur supplies more than 60% of the fabric distributed across the country and handles about 40% of Bangladesh’s imported clothing fabrics and materials. Photo: Rajib Dhar

It was early morning, and the sun had not fully risen. Yet the narrow streets of Islampur were already coming alive, preparing for another busy day.

Bundles of fabric were being unloaded from trucks, passed from one pair of hands to another. The rhythm seemed almost timeless — as if the movement of cloth through these narrow lanes had changed little over centuries.

One by one, shop shutters began to rise. Inside, sharis, panjabi fabrics, suit materials and bedsheets emerged in an endless spread of colours and textures.

For decades, Islampur has stood at the heart of Bangladesh’s textile trade. Traders estimate that the market supplies more than 60% of the fabric distributed across the country’s 64 districts.

From mango trade to a cloth empire

For nearly three centuries, Islampur has evolved from one kind of trading centre into another.

During the Mughal era, Emperor Jahangir appointed Islam Khan Chishti as the first subahdar of Bengal. The area later came to be known as Islampur after him.

But Islampur was not always a centre of the cloth trade. The area was once known for its mango trade and was locally referred to as “Aam Patti”. The Buriganga waterway made communication easy, and goods from various regions of the country would arrive and accumulate here.

As Dhaka’s population grew and demand for textiles expanded across the country, Islampur’s commercial identity began to change. Over time, seasonal mango warehouses gave way to cloth stores and wholesale shops.

Salam Bepari, 64, a resident of Islampur, recalled, “My grandfather used to sell mangoes too.”

Until the 1990s, much of Islampur consisted of small lane-side shops and one- or two-storey buildings with tin roofs and simple structures. Over the next three decades, those simple setups gave way to more than 95 multi-storey commercial markets, housing over 12,000 shops.

This dramatic growth was mainly driven by economic change, urbanisation, and the expansion of the ready-made garment sector.

With little room for horizontal expansion in densely built Old Dhaka, traders increasingly built upward.

According to Salam, from the 1990s, old houses and single-storey warehouses began to be demolished and replaced by multi-storey commercial buildings such as Lion Tower, Jahangir Tower and Sharif Market. A single building could accommodate hundreds of shops, rapidly expanding the market without requiring more land.

He added that because the cloth business was profitable, small sections within the main shops were separated, or lanes were used, to create new small shops.

The transformation of Islampur also coincided with the expansion of Bangladesh’s textile, dyeing and power-loom industries in the 1990s.

“Thousands of cloth mills sprang up in Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Tangail and Keraniganj. Islampur became the main commercial hub for selling this growing volume of cloth, creating demand for more and more showrooms,” Salam said.

In earlier days, traders kept ledgers and business documents in trunks or wooden boxes, while only fabric samples were displayed in what locals called “godighars” — warehouse-like shop spaces.

The wholesale cloth trade here began in 1773 under British East India Company rule, and it gradually became the focal point of the textile trade nationwide. During EIC rule, the British established agencies in Islampur to run the wholesale cloth business.

For hundreds of years, the businesses of muslin, pottery, leather, salt, and cloth have flourished in Islampur, making the area an important part of Dhaka’s heritage.

Md Faruq Hossain, 59, owner of Faruq & Sons, said his father had been in the cloth business since British times, and he himself has been looking after this business since 1996.

Borhanuddin Gazi, owner of Sun Shine Textile, said his father had told him that traders were initially drawn to the area because the Buriganga provided the easiest and most cost-effective route for transporting goods.

After independence in 1971, Islampur grew into one of Bangladesh’s largest wholesale hubs for textiles and fabrics.

Why buyers still come to Islampur

The scale of Islampur’s trade is visible in the sheer volume of goods moving through its shops every day. The market supplies about 60% of the country’s total demand for locally produced garments, and about 40% of imported clothing fabric and materials.

The market now stretches across roughly 95 commercial markets, with thousands of permanent showrooms and temporary outlets drawing tens of thousands of workers to its narrow lanes.

Over its nearly 300-year history, Islampur has changed shape many times — from a mango depot to a cloth empire, from tin-roofed warehouse-shops to multi-storey towers, and from ledgers in wooden boxes to online orders. Every change has come out of the needs of its time. Today’s challenges — the dollar crisis, design theft, or competition from online platforms — may, too, one day blend into the long flow of its history.

According to the Islampur Cloth Merchant Association ICMA), the area houses more than 6,500 formal showrooms — a figure that exceeds 12,000 when roadside shops are included — providing livelihoods for an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 people.

Ali Ansar Mollah, a member of ICMA, said the market handles transactions worth crores of taka every year, although the absence of complete cash records makes an exact estimate difficult.

As business has grown, Islampur’s trade has spread to Sadarghat, Faridabad, and the surrounding areas. Currently, cloth and garments are sold in more than 150 markets in these areas, including Bikrampur Garden City, Gulshan Ara City, South Plaza, Jahangir Tower, and China Market.

Faruq said his shop does not import directly; instead, it buys from importers and local collectors operating in the area. Its customers are wholesalers and retailers from across the country, with goods travelling to all 64 districts. Within Dhaka, its supply network reaches major markets including Bashundhara City, Uttara and Banani-Gulshan.

Islampur’s reach isn’t limited to inside the country. Clothing bought at wholesale rates is also informally sent to neighbouring countries, especially West Bengal and Tripura in India. Alongside this, to meet the demand of the Bangladeshi diaspora, these goods also go to the Middle East, Europe, and Australia.

Islampur’s price range is also notably diverse. Depending on whether it is wholesale or retail, cloth prices here start from as low as Tk20 and, depending on the item, can go up to several thousand taka.

Faruq added that, depending on quality and type, cloth is sold per yard for Tk20 to Tk100 or more. In the wholesale market, good-quality three-piece sets start from Tk450–500, and prices for sarees and lungis also vary from standard to premium quality.

Ali Ansar Mollah added that he has heard from local people that before the association was formed, businessmen used to be forced to pay weekly extortion money — no one knew exactly who it went to; some paid Tk200, some paid Tk500.

He further said the association is now trying to address the problem. “Our goal is to ensure that businessmen can operate without paying extortion money, while improving security, infrastructure and the overall business environment of Islampur’s wholesale market,” he said.

Back at shop level, that reasonable pricing is exactly what keeps customers coming back. Faruq said his shop carries various three-piece sets priced from Tk350 to Tk2,000

The market remains busy throughout the year, but the pace changes dramatically before Eid and Puja. Photo: Rajib Dhar

According to him, since all the designs are made in their own factory, every design is unique — customers can buy from them at much lower prices than anywhere else.

The traditional wholesale model is also changing. In recent years, Islampur has seen a rapid rise in online buyers—small e-commerce and social-commerce sellers who purchase in bulk and sell directly to customers through digital platforms.

Borhanuddin said online sellers have become some of his biggest customers. “They buy directly from us because they can get a large variety of products at low prices in one place,” he said.

However, alongside this picture of prosperity lies a different reality. Borhanuddin further said that daily sales of Tk4–5 lakh used to be the norm in the shop.

But sales dropped due to Covid-19 in 2020 — the situation became so bad that even daily sales of Tk1 lakh weren’t happening. He said before, the crowds were so heavy that he didn’t even have time to go home for lunch.

Eid brings a seasonal surge

Islampur remains busy throughout the year, but the pace changes dramatically before Eid and Puja. Nearly a month before Ramadan, retailers begin arriving to stock their shops, while vans and rickshaws loaded with fabric move constantly through the narrow lanes.

Clothing is somewhat seasonal. When Eid or Puja approaches, sales rise sharply, Faruq said.

The seasonal rush begins around Shab-e-Barat and reaches its peak from the first week of Ramadan. Edris said the busiest period continues until roughly Chand Raat, the night before Eid.

In the days right before Shab-e-Barat, daily cloth sales can reach more than Tk2 lakh, while on ordinary days before and after that, daily sales drop to around Tk30,000 — showing just how intense this short seasonal demand is.

During Ramadan, he said, the workload intensifies: the shop may remain open until around 12:30am and reopen by 10am. On Chand Raat, it stays open through the night.

For buyers from outside Dhaka, the seasonal trip to Islampur has become a routine of its own. Halima Akter, 53, from Charbhadrasan in Faridpur, has been buying cloth from Islampur for 25 years. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve come here to buy wholesale and yard cloth for Eid,” she said, citing the market’s combination of price and quality.

Behind the busy market lies a crisis

The crisis begins right at the import stage. Due to a dollar shortage, banks aren’t able to open letters of credit (LCs) on time to import yarn and foreign cloth from China or India, causing delays in imports.

Added to this is the rise in raw material prices and shipping costs on the international market, which has driven up the cost of cloth production far more than before. This production crisis is made worse by the lack of regular gas and electricity supply at textile mills and dyeing factories — as a result, goods aren’t being delivered on time.

This pressure of rising costs is falling on sales. As the price of daily essentials has gone up, ordinary people’s budgets for buying clothes have shrunk, so retailers aren’t buying wholesale goods from Islampur in the large quantities they used to.

Faruq said that 10 years ago, daily sales were Tk4–5 lakh; now that has dropped to Tk60,000–Tk70,000, while costs run more than Tk10,000.

Shrinking sales are not the only pressure on Islampur’s traders. Many also describe a system of informal payments that continues to this day.

Faruq said the extortion system still continues today. “It depends on who you are,” he said.

“Small footpath sellers are charged Tk100 to Tk500 a day. Trucks bringing in goods have to pay Tk300 to Tk1000 a trip, in the name of loading fees. Bigger shops like ours are asked for Tk1,000 to Tk3,000 a week.”

Alongside this crisis of shrinking customers has come another rival — online business. Many people now run businesses directly online or through social media, working from home. Since they don’t have to bear the burden of showroom rent or extra taxes, they can sell at lower prices, creating fierce competition for Islampur’s shopkeepers.

Borhanuddin said online sellers often operate with higher margins because their overheads are lower. “Our prices are already reasonable. This is our competition — if I reduce the price by Tk5, someone else reduces theirs by another Tk5,” he said.

He added that at the end of 2021, when he did the accounts, he found around Tk7.5 lakh still owed to him in credit — money he still hasn’t been able to fully collect to this day.

Design copying is another persistent problem. When a trader introduces a new three-piece or saree design, small factories can reproduce it within days using cheaper, lower-quality fabric and sell it at a lower price. The original trader is then left bearing the cost of developing the design while competitors profit from a cheaper copy.

Over its nearly 300-year history, Islampur has changed shape many times — from a mango depot to a cloth empire, from tin-roofed warehouse-shops to multi-storey towers, and from ledgers in wooden boxes to online orders. Every change has come out of the needs of its time.

Today’s challenges — the dollar crisis, design theft, or competition from online platforms—may, too, one day blend into the long flow of its history.

Businessmen like Faruq Hossain, therefore, haven’t given up hope. “What I learned from my father, I’m now teaching my son,” he said. “The business exists, and it will keep existing — only its form will change.”

Source: The Business Standard