COVER STORY
Karnaphuli Multi-Channel Tunnel Project, which once completed, is expected to significantly cut travel time between Chittagong and Cox’ s Bazar, ease congestion on the two bridges across Karnaphuli River, besides feeding into the ongoing Dhaka-Chittagong-Cox’ s Bazar Highway project, thereby substantially easing communication with the all-important Chittagong Port.
Resources Matter
Access to quality textiles is a common problem for both Vietnam and Bangladesh leading to increased lead times. But Vietnam’ s close proximity to China makes transporting raw materials( fabrics and accessories) convenient and less time-consuming compared to Bangladesh.
Depending heavily on China for raw materials, Bangladesh lately has invested a lot in fabric production and enhancing capacities, but it has remained more in favour of woven. Renowned as the global denim capital, Bangladesh has 30 denim mills with a capacity to produce 435 million yards of fabrics a year while at least 6 new denim mills are supposed to be set up with an investment of US $ 100 million in a year or two. This has taken the focus off from other fabrics thereby making the country dependent on overseas destinations to cater to its requirements.
Once a net importer of accessories( mainly from Hong Kong and China), Bangladesh, however, has developed by leaps and bounds in achieving self-sufficiency in accessory production, so much so that local manufacturers are now exporting the integral parts of apparel items to other countries. At present, there are nearly 1,600 factories producing accessories( some are directly exporting to other countries), with earnings from apparel accessories hitting US $ 600 million in 2015-16.
Skill Development
Technological advancements in manufacturing and demand for valueadded apparels gaining increased popularity, skill set of workers has become a very important issue now. The World Economic Forum( WEF) Human Capital Index measures the
INDUSTRY SPEAKS
Wanigabaduga Sujeewa Indika, Chief Operating Officer, Utah Fashions Ltd.
AOB: Can Vietnam surpass Bangladesh in apparel exports in near future?
Indika: Yes, there is a threat to Bangladesh … If they( the industry) fail to change standards, it can go downwards from many line items and criterions in the list in near future. As per the current data, Vietnam is above Bangladesh and within recent 2-3 years’ time, Vietnam has clearly moved ahead in terms of growth in apparel exports; besides, the number of workers and number of factories has also increased.
Vietnam is maintaining good labour standards by providing better working environment. They are improving the standards everyday and also have good educational mechanism to provide good employees to the companies; even their team member level people also have good educational background.
But in recent 2-3 years Bangladesh didn’ t grow as much as Vietnam did. Export levels have also not improved drastically. Standardization and using new industrial methodologies are weak and Bangladesh is still lacking in good human resource management and in compliance procedures. The 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attack which was labelled as a terrorist act, created some sort of image crisis for the country. Further such incidents will be a huge threat to the industry.
Also, sometimes Bangladeshi companies are found violating country’ s working hour standards and some of the companies still fail to provide better work environment to employees. Middlemanagement and ground-level employees also lack in good educational background too. So if Bangladesh needs to maintain its reputation globally, it needs to change those weaknesses into opportunities as soon as possible.
AOB: Probability of Bangladesh to maintain lead …
Indika: It depends … If Bangladesh continues with some of its current manufacturing standards in future, it can be a threat to the industry. At the moment, the industry is depending mainly on its high worker availability and is ahead of most other apparel manufacturing countries by maintaining low labour costs.
If Bangladesh does not adapt to the global requirements and standards quickly it will be surpassed by many countries in future, apart from Vietnam or India.
Preventing terrorism, human resource management and proper compliance management, stopping child labour activities, maintaining high product quality standards, focus on product / machinery automations and innovations, implementing process development methods such as Lean, TPM, Establishing Green concepts like eco management systems, etc. will be key factors if Bangladesh wants to grow or maintain its global business volumes.
Also, the country needs to improve educational standards in general to improve its industrial standards. Most of the companies are still lacking in maintaining global apparel manufacturing standards and procedures, and they are following outdated, traditional ways to survive in day-to-day activities because of the poor educational standards of the employees and middle-management.
Day by day buyers’ requirements will grow while price will be low. So without developing skills or processes Bangladesh cannot survive in the apparel industry for a long time.
AOB: Catalysts for growth …
Indika: Industry’ s increasing dependence on raw materials manufactured within the country, educated – young generation getting involved with the industry, availability of good technical experts and experienced employees and good financial infrastructure.
AOB: Bangladesh’ s strengths vis-à-vis Vietnam
Indika: Cheapest labour among RMG-producing countries; compact, organized and favourable infrastructure; pre-export financing institutions for assistance; technical management appears to be very dynamic and capable of improved performance; bodies and associations like BGMEA, BKMEA, and BEPZA etc. to build strong collaboration with various related organizations; good reputation of product quality globally( increasing more export options); strong rise of knitting sector, availability of very good quality yarn locally, more options of new employments; great pricing capability, attracting new buyers by establishing new buying houses; encouraging new joint venture projects; and the change in Governments’ attitude towards the RMG sector.
www. apparelresources. com | MAY 2018 | Apparel Online Bangladesh 19