The foreign trade regime of Bangladesh is characterised by fixed exchange rate, a reliance on both tariff and quota for limiting imports and ad hoc export incentive measures. It is often hypothesised that this kind of policy syndrome creates a distorted structure of incentives leading to a pattern of industrial growth which does not conform to comparative advantage. This paper attempts to test the validity of the hypothesis in the context of Bangladesh. Empirical measurement of comparative advantage in this study is based on Domestic Resource Cost (DRC). A sector is considered to enjoy comparative advantage if its DRC is positive and less than the shadow price of foreign exchange. On the basis of a survey of 62 manufacturing sectors, it is found that the DRC turns out to be negative for as many as 18 sectors, including one important sector, cigarette. There are 19 sectors with long-run DRC values positive, but higher than the shadow price of foreign exchange indicating lack of comparative advantage. Some important sectors in this group are steel, matches and paper. Only 25 sectors demonstrate long run comparative advantage. The findings, therefore, confirm the hypothesis that the pattern of industrial growth in Bangladesh does not conform to comparative advantage.