Bangladesh Garments Accessories and Packaging Manufacturers Association (BGAPMEA) has a prospective to launch a testing laboratory to improve product quality by providing timely and reliable testing facilities for garment accessories and packaging from November 2016 onwards. The testing laboratory is going to be set up under ‘Integrated Support to Poverty and Inequality Reduction through Enterprise Development’ (INSPIRED) project funded by the European Union (EU) and Ministry of Industries, Bangladesh.
Also Read – Government help necessary to set up packaging institute and lab, states BGAPMEA
Setting up of the lab is an effort to provide internally acceptable testing facilities for various types of products manufacturers by the industrial units under BGAPMEA. The testing facilities include touchscreen bursting strength tester, moisture meter, box compression strength tester, drop tester, crush tester and full set of accessories, cobb absorbency tester and sample cutter and rub tests.
Abdul Kader Khan, President, BGAPMEA averred, “Working with the help of EU and Industry Ministry since 2013 to develop a testing lab for the accessories manufactures, we are finally going to launch the lab in November. Testing of products is one of the buyers’ requirements and it would help the sector people to meet their demands with quality assurance. The lab will provide testing facilities that is internationally acceptable,” while adding that since their next focus is on creating skilled manpower, the BGAPMEA is now working on establishing a training institute.
Further, he states that if the Government provides policy and financial support for this purpose, we will be able to export worth over US $ 12 billion against the overall export target of US $ 50 billion by 2021.
It may be mentioned here that there are about 1,400 manufacturers of accessories in the country that have employed over 3 lakh people. According to latest data, the contribution of garment accessories and packaging to apparel export rose by 9.28 per cent to US $ 6.12 billion in the last fiscal year compared to US $ 5.6 billion in the fiscal year 2014-15.
