Refayet Ullah Mirdha

Bangladesh is lagging behind its global peers due to lack of investment and adequate government support to set up mills to produce manmade fibres (MMFs), which are gaining popularity worldwide as biodegradable raw material for apparel manufacturing.

The garment sector is facing a double whammy as more and more factories are closing at a time when apparel shipments are falling.

Bangladesh needs to look beyond traditional regional trading blocs in order to widen business opportunities and avoid squeezing of preferential trade benefit once the country becomes a developing nation, the country’s top business leader said.

Bangladesh’s exports will grow 7.3 percent next year, down 1.8 percentage points from that in 2019, as the ongoing global trade tension continues to hurt business in Asia and the Pacific, a new United Nations report said.

More application-based startups can be a game changer for creating jobs for the unemployed and educated youth in Bangladesh, according to a top official of the United Nations.

The prices of Bangladeshi made apparel items continued to fall since the Rana Plaza building collapse in April 2013 although the prices of cotton, the main raw material for fabrics, increased during the time to some extent.

Exports declined in the month of November mainly because of poor performance of apparel shipment, in an ominous sign that can thwart Bangladesh’s target to earn $45.50 billion from merchandise shipment in the current fiscal year.

International Classic Composite Ltd (ICCL) has been facing troubles to invest Tk 250 crore, as the Dhaka’s development authority is not allowing the Bangladesh-Netherlands joint venture knitwear company to use its own land for factory expansion.

Last month, Monir Hossain, a garment factory owner, missed a deadline for exporting T-shirts to his UK buyer through the seaways.

Sanofi’s top management has agreed to pay service benefits to employees in the form of gratuity and provident fund before selling off its shares in Bangladesh, said some employees.

A German garment buyer stayed at the Narayanganj club over the last two days for visits to MB Knit Fashion Ltd.

Thanks to steady economic development and higher incomes of people, Bangladesh has turned into a lucrative market for multinational retail companies, said Rajeev Gopalakrishnan, president of the Asia-Pacific region of Bata.

Swedish retail giant H&M is the largest apparel buyer in Bangladesh. Every year, it buys more than $3 billion worth of garment items from the country. Recently, the company appointed a Bangladesh-born country manager for the first time. Last week Refayet Ullah Mirdha, a senior reporter of The Daily Star, sat with Ziaur Rahman, head of H&M for Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ethiopia, for an interview. Here are the excerpts:

In a desperate move for better prices, Bangladeshi garment exporters are planning to hold rallies and human chains in major European cities to create awareness among the end consumers.

The crisis in the leather and leather goods industry has deepened further as the tanners are yet to pay Tk 350 crore in arrears fully to the rawhide merchants.

The Savar Tannery Industrial Estate (STIE) and the tanners are still a long way off from meeting the requirements of the vital Leather Working Group (LWG) certification although the audit team of the global compliance certification body is scheduled to visit Bangladesh within two months.

Leather and leather good exporters are gung-ho about hitting $5 billion in export receipts by 2022 if the government manages the Leather Working Group’s certification at the earliest, according to industry insiders.

With great hopes, Yih Hang, a Taiwanese shoemaking machinery manufacturer, is participating in the 7th International Leathertech Show at the three-day International Convention City Bashundhara in Dhaka.

Fifty-nine garment factories have been shut and 25,900 workers have lost jobs in the last seven months, BGMEA President Rubana Huq said.

Bangladesh’s cotton consumption will continue to grow in the near future because of higher shipment of garment items stemming from the US-China trade war and for higher demand for natural fibre by Western consumers, said a top official of Cotton USA, an association of American cotton growers and traders.