DHAKA: Bangladesh said on Sunday it had granted a licence to tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service, as punishing US tariffs raise fears for its key garment sector.

The Starlink service will be unveiled at a government-backed investment summit that opens in Dhaka on Monday.

“We granted them approval,” Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud, chairman of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, told reporters on Sunday.

Mahmud said it was granted on March 28, several days before US President Donald Trump unveiled his wide-ranging tariff programme that sent global markets into a tailspin.

The new tariff on Bangladesh goods was set at 37 percent, hiking duties from the previous 16 percent on cotton.

Musk has a highly visible White House role as Trump’s right-hand man and his meetings with foreign leaders have raised questions about the blurring of the line between his official roles and business interests.

Dhaka’s interim authorities, who took over after a student-led revolution toppled the hardline former government in August 2024, are seeking US diplomatic support.

Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, held an emergency meeting on Saturday to assess the impact of the tariffs on the world’s second-largest garment producer.

Nobel Prize winner Yunus will write to Trump about the tariffs, his press secretary said on Sunday.

Musk and Yunus spoke in February about bringing Starlink, which provides internet access to remote locations by low Earth orbit satellites, to Bangladesh.

At the time, they emphasised that the service would create new opportunities for “Bangladesh’s enterprising youth, rural and vulnerable women, and remote communities”, a statement from Yunus’ media office said. Textile and garment production account for about 80 percent of exports from the South Asian country.

Bangladesh exports $8.4 billion of garments annually to the United States, according to data from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, the national trade body.

That accounts for about 20 percent of Bangladesh’s total exports of ready-made garments.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2025