Shah Alam Nur :
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) President Siddiqur Rahman on Saturday said, the country’s readymade garments (RMG) are facing pressure in global market.
The BGMEA president disclosed it while speaking at a press conference on “Overall Situation of Garments Industry and Future Steps” at the BGMEA headquarters in city.
He said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal will further increase the pressure on the local RMG sector.
He said, “The devaluation of Euro against US dollar is not a welcome news, as we are currently exporting 60 per cent of Bangladesh garment in European.”
BGMEA president said that the TPP deal would hamper Bangladesh RMG exports to the US.
On the other hand Vietnam will get free access to the US market.
He said, “Vietnam is one of our major competitors in apparel trade. Now, as the country signed the TPP, its products will get duty free access to US market.”
The TPP was signed among countries like Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the USA.
The BGMEA chief said “We renovated our factories as per the recommendation of Accord and Alliance, but the buyers did not raise price.”
He said, that local appeal product would lose its market share of RMG export into the US, as Vietnamese RMG products will enter the American market completely free of duty once TPP is activated.
He said at present, Bangladesh pays 15.62 percent duty for its garment exports to the US, whereas Vietnam pays 8.38 per cent.
He said Bangladesh currently holds five percent share of total RMG market in the world, which must be raised by an additional one percent to reach the industry target of $50 billion RMG export target by 2021.
Local RMG producers are now facing stiff competition to penetrate into the United States in the wake of the higher production cost but less price, said former President of Bangladesh Exporters Association (EAB) Abdus Salam Murshedy on Saturday.
He said, “We are introducing production engineering and automation to reduce production cost and enhance productivity to tackle the situation.”
He also urged the government to provide policy support to reduce production cost.
The garment manufacturing sector in Bangladesh has a new slogan: “$50 billion by 2021.” It is an ambitious vision to reach $50bn in exports by 2021, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Bangladesh.
