This paper focuses attention on the output and employment potential of alternative trade strategies for the industrial economy of Bangladesh. The analysis involves two basic stages. At stage I, the input requirements of the various industrial sectors of the economy are estimated in an input-output framework. At stage II, the comparative factor intensities of export expansion and import substitution as calculated in the simple Leontief tradition, from which estimates the output and employment implications of trade in manufactures are then directly deduced. The findings in this study indicate that the industrial exports and import substitutes of Bangladesh do not differ significantly in their implications for (unskilled) labour employment. Export promotion, however, is likely to have a considerably higher output potential, for a given amount of investible resource, as compared to a policy of import substitution.