Bangladesh has invited India to invest in Bangladesh’s textile sector, urging them to produce high-end fabric for Bangladesh’s booming apparel industry.
Siddiqur Rahman, President of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), made the call at a top business-to-business meeting with leading Indian yarn and fabric exporters in Dhaka on July 21, 2018.
According to him, the local textiles sector, the backward linkage that Bangladesh has created for its apparel industry, can only supply about 35 to 40 per cent of the demand, despite harbouring rapid investment and growth in capacity.
“As we are pursuing a higher growth strategy, Bangladesh is a potential market for man-made fibre-based textiles. Since India is the second largest producer of manmade fibre and filament, there is a huge opportunity to complement our supply chain,” Siddiqur said.
“I would like to encourage our friends from India to consider investments in the high-end textile sector in Bangladesh which will be a win-win situation for all of us. We welcome investments in the form of joint venture or 100 per cent foreign ownership,” he added.
“We have a huge potential of collaborating in the textile and apparel sector. If we can complement each other, we will have a new horizon of opportunities,” he added.
Ujwal Lahoti, Chairman of the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council of India, said they have higher capacity of raw material and intermediary production against domestic requirement because of greater investment in the value chain of textile and clothing production.
Lahoti added that because Bangladesh has a gap in supply of textile and clothing in its supply chain, India can easily be a preferred source of filling the gap. “Even though, India is the major supplier of yarns to Bangladesh, there is a long way to go in increasing market-share in supply of fabrics.”
According to what he said, the total world trade in textile and clothing is about 60 per cent traded ‘Intra Asia’ and it is bound to increase in coming years owing to expansion in installed capacities and requirement of fibre for apparel among Asian countries.
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