Bangladesh as an apparel manufacturing hub has been known for its economies of scales and fast evolving vertically integrated setups, many in the industry assert that it is the same verticalization and consistent expansions that have made apparel manufacturing operations in the country cost-effective, compared to other countries. But with the changing times and brunt of the global recession, reducing manufacturing costs even while working with large quantities has become a necessity, believes M. A. Jalil Ananta, Chairman & Managing Director of AJI Group, one of the largest apparel and textile conglomerates of Bangladesh with spinning, printing, dyeing, fabric and garmenting capabilities, with a turnover of more than US $ 100 million.
“In Bangladesh one should not be impressed by the turnovers of apparel manufacturing companies, as in the past decade the operating costs have increased by 500% and are still increasing every day, which makes it very hard to make profits, no matter how big is the turnover,” says Jalil, who did his Fashion Designing and Bachelors in Business Administration from University of Manchester. He also worked as GM Production in a garment factory in Bangladesh to gain experience before taking charge of AJI Group in 2001.
Manufacturing knit products in a vertically integrated setup, from spinning to sewing, AJI Group from the time of its inception in 1996 at Mirpur has expanded manifold and now has 9 factories under its umbrella, producing 1.2 million pieces of knitted garments per month with 2000 sewing machines, 56 circular knitting machines and 14,000 spindles.
One of the biggest advantages of such an integrated setup is the enhanced speed to the market, and AJI Group claims to ship repeat orders in a period of just 4 weeks. “Many of the buyers have been working with me since 1996, and we have never given any discounts or had any amount of stock lots,” claims Jalil. The company is working with some of the biggest buyers like H&M, Zara, Next, JCPenny, Walmart and Kmart. “I have always looked at working with big brands as they exemplify my company’s image further, which in-turn increases my acceptability among other buyers. My next target is Abercrombie & Fitch,” avers Jalil.
For handling such a huge setup, Jalil has hired many expats at key positions from countries like India, Sri Lanka and Philippines. “The Indians are engaged in the dyeing and merchandising department, while the Sri Lankans and Philippines are engaged in the production and quality departments,” he adds. The company has an Industrial Engineering department of 12 people, mostly from Sri Lanka and a few local persons which shows how much Jalil understands the strengths of people from different countries. Recalling why he first felt the need of having expats, Jalil says, “Long time back, I visited a company doing similar garments in Sri Lanka and the calculated SAM of the product was 6 minutes, which was very shocking for me as we were making the same garment in 16 minutes.
Moreover they were even using less manpower and just 32 machines, 4 helpers, 1 supervisor and 1 QC, compared to our sewing line of 20 helpers, 2 supervisors and 3 QCs. Altogether we were using 35% more people and the productivity was inversely proportional to manpower. All this made me hire expats.” The company presently has 37 sewing lines in all, with 36-37 machines in each line unlike the 15-16 machines per line standard followed by the country for knits. The company also underwent a Productivity Improvement Program (PIP), an initiative of the BKMEA, and has since reduced rejections from 4% to less than 1%, alterations from 12% to 3% and oil marks from 4-5% to less than 1%.
“Presently we are quite contented with our sewing capacities, but would be setting up a yarn dyeing facility, with an investment of Tk. 200 crores in the coming one year,” shares Jalil. Yarn dyeing is presently being outsourced by the company. The company also has plans to increase the capacity of its ETP plant from 70 cubic litres per hour to 130 cubic litres per hour.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
