The Beginning: Diplomatic Recognition in 1973
Bangladesh and the Republic of Korea established formal diplomatic relations on 18 December 1973 — barely two years after Bangladesh's hard-won independence and during a formative period for both nations. Korea itself was in the midst of its own remarkable economic transformation, the "Miracle on the Han River," and Bangladesh was laying the foundations of a new state. Both nations shared the experience of emerging from conflict, rebuilding from the ground up, and pursuing rapid development with limited resources.
The early years of relations were modest in scope. Trade volumes were small, and the relationship was primarily maintained through diplomatic channels and occasional cultural exchanges. Yet the foundation of mutual respect was established early and has endured.
Korean Investment and the Garment Revolution
One of the most significant chapters in the Bangladesh-Korea story is the role of Korean business interests in the early development of Bangladesh's readymade garment (RMG) sector — today the backbone of the Bangladeshi economy, accounting for over 80% of export earnings.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Daewoo Corporation entered into a landmark technical collaboration with Desh Garments Ltd. of Bangladesh, providing training for Bangladeshi workers and managers in Korean garment manufacturing techniques. Approximately 130 Bangladeshi trainees went to Korea and returned home with skills that seeded the industry. Many of those trainees later established their own garment factories, directly catalysing the explosive growth that would transform Bangladesh into the world's second-largest garment exporter.
This single collaboration had consequences that rippled across decades — it is not an exaggeration to say that the modern Bangladeshi economy owes a partial but real debt to early Korean industrial partnership.
Trade and Economic Relations Today
By the 2020s, South Korea had grown into one of Bangladesh's significant trade partners. Korean conglomerates including Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and POSCO maintain active business interests in Bangladesh. Samsung in particular has a large presence in the Bangladeshi electronics retail market. Korean firms have also invested in infrastructure, energy, and special economic zones in Bangladesh.
On the Bangladeshi side, export to Korea primarily consists of ready-made garments, leather goods, and jute products. The trade balance has historically favoured Korea, with Bangladesh importing capital goods, electronics, and industrial equipment. However, the EPS labour migration programme has created a new dimension of economic exchange that partially rebalances this relationship — the remittances flowing from Korean workplaces back to Bangladeshi families constitute a significant and growing economic transfer.
The Employment Permit System: A New Chapter
Bangladesh was admitted to Korea's Employment Permit System (EPS) in 2008, following years of advocacy by the Bangladeshi government and recognition by the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labour of Bangladesh's large, trainable, young workforce. The EPS framework created a legal, regulated pathway for Bangladeshi workers to contribute to the Korean economy while being protected by Korean labour law.
Since 2008, the EPS has become one of the most important bilateral programmes between the two countries. Annual worker quotas have grown significantly, and Bangladesh has consistently been recognised by the Korean government as a cooperative, responsible sending country with strong compliance rates and low overstay percentages.
Cultural Bridges: The Korean Language
Perhaps no marker of the depth of this relationship is more striking than the widespread study of Korean language (한국어, Hangugeo) in Bangladesh. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis register for the EPS-TOPIK Korean language examination — a prerequisite for working in Korea under the EPS. Korean language centres have proliferated across Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, and smaller cities. The Korean language, once heard only in imported dramas, is now spoken in villages across Bangladesh by people who have worked in Korea or are preparing to do so.
Korean popular culture — K-dramas, K-pop, Korean food — also enjoys genuine enthusiasm in Bangladeshi urban culture, creating soft cultural bonds that complement the formal economic relationship.
A Partnership for the Future
The Bangladesh-Korea relationship is fundamentally one of complementarity. Korea has capital, technology, an aging population, and industries that require more workers than its domestic labour market can supply. Bangladesh has a young, growing population, a workforce hungry for opportunity, and a government committed to maximising the potential of its human capital.
This is not a relationship of dependence — it is a genuine symbiosis. Each nation brings what the other lacks, and the exchange creates value that flows in both directions. The Bangladeshi worker who spends four years in Korea returns home not only with savings, but with skills, discipline, international experience, and a broader worldview. The Korean factory that employs that worker produces goods that compete globally, sustaining an economy that supports 51 million Koreans.
Five decades on from those first diplomatic exchanges in 1973, Bangladesh and Korea stand as partners whose connection — built on industry, labour, culture, and mutual respect — is deeper and more consequential than either nation's official histories have yet fully acknowledged. The best chapters of this story are still to be written.