Power outages and voltage fluctuations are jeopardising high-value pharmaceutical production and could damage Bangladesh’s standing in international markets, Simeen Rahman, vice-president of the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, warned on Wednesday.

Simeen Rahman, who is also Transcom Group’s chief executive officer, said energy security was now a strategic necessity for economic progress, not merely an infrastructure question. She was speaking at a policy conclave titled “Energy Security & Transformation of Bangladesh” organised by Bonik Barta in Dhaka.

Rahman said the industrial sector’s most pressing problem was not simply the availability of energy but the reliability of supply and the quality of power. Voltage swings and sudden outages disrupted production, raised operating costs and injected uncertainty into the entire supply chain, she said.

Rising fuel prices had also pushed up the cost of running generators, transporting raw materials and delivering finished goods, while fierce global competition prevented most firms from passing the full additional cost on to consumers. That was eroding profits, competitiveness and the appetite for fresh investment across manufacturing, Rahman said.

She pointed to the pharmaceutical sector as a case in point, noting that Eskayef Pharmaceuticals, a Transcom group company, produced sterile injectables under tightly controlled conditions where temperature, humidity, air pressure and airflow must be maintained around the clock. A sudden blackout or voltage instability could compromise those conditions, damage advanced production equipment and force a prolonged quality-verification process before manufacturing could resume. “This isn’t just about production downtime; it’s a matter of product quality and patient safety,” she said.

A single batch of high-technology products such as cancer drugs or insulin could be worth tens of millions of takas, Rahman said. A minor disruption in power supply could jeopardise an entire batch, delay exports and threaten Bangladesh’s reputation in global markets.

She said companies were being compelled to build additional backup infrastructure at their own expense because of the limitations of the national energy and power grid, diverting capital that could otherwise be invested in research, development, automation and export capacity.

A reliable, stable and future-ready energy system would make the country’s industrial sector more competitive, create better jobs and attract both domestic and foreign investment, accelerating Bangladesh’s economic transformation, Simeen Rahman said.

She urged greater domestic gas exploration, diversification of energy sources, improved grid reliability and power quality, and a policy environment that encouraged private investment in rooftop solar, energy-efficient technology and clean energy.

Energy security was directly linked to investment, exports, public health and Bangladesh’s overall competitiveness, she said, noting that countries that had diversified their energy sources and strengthened their systems had proved more resilient to global shocks.