Business Desk :
Bangladesh is now seeking more cotton from the US to diversify the destinations from where the country sources the natural fibre in this current world of intense competition. For the procurement of more American cotton, leaders of the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) want to introduce direct shipping between ports in the US and Bangladesh.
Bangladesh imports nearly $1 billion-worth of cotton from the US in a year. Cotton is also sourced mainly from India, Australia and countries in the continent of Africa. America has been slowly turning into a good source of cotton for the local millers. Not only that, America is the single largest export destination for the country. Bangladesh has already exported more than $4 billion worth of garment items over the last six months of this fiscal year.
It is expected that the country will be able to export more than $8 billion worth of garment items at the end of this fiscal year, said Mohammad Ali Khokon, president of the BTMA, at a discussion. So direct shipping services between Bangladesh and the US will reduce the cost of doing business alongside the lead time in trade, he said.
Many shipping lines do not want to come to Chattogram port because of vessel and container congestions and the long time it takes to load and unload goods, he said. As a result, some shipping lines have been leaving goods destined for Bangladesh at ports in China and Malaysia, he said.
A BTMA standing committee on shipping will meet the government to propose enabling direct shipping services between Bangladesh and the US, he told the discussion on the textile sector organised by the BTMA at a Dhaka hotel on Friday night. However, a proposed gas price hike and inadequate supply of gas to the textile mills are posing a threat to the sector, Khokon also said. The pressure of gas in the supply lines to some areas like Araihazar, Gazipur, Tongi and Shafipur is very low. As a result, the production in the textile mills in those areas is severely being affected, he said.
Many entrepreneurs want to shut down their business as they are having to do with lower production for the low gas pressure, said the BTMA president. Khorshed Alam, chairman of local spinner Little Group, said he was pondering whether to shut down his textile business as he was not getting adequate gas pressure to his mill for many years. He said to have incurred a loss of Tk 145 crore for the loss of production from the inadequate supply of gas to the mill.
Alam said he sent 40 letters to state-owned gas distributor Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company over the past four years requesting that an adequate supply of gas be provided to his unit but the situation has not improved. Abdullah Al Mamun, vice president of the BTMA, said the country’s textile sector has grown a lot over the last couple of decades thanks to the availability of cheap labour and energy.
