Data released by Bangladesh’s National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently has thrown some interesting light on prices offered to the country’s apparel products, which at once is worrisome and a matter of grave concern.
Believe it or not, as per NBR, the prices of ready-made garment (RMG) products have fallen by 1.61 per cent in the last 4 years.
Considering that components like overheads, price of raw materials, labour wages, etc., are on the rise, such a development is bound to have ramifications on Bangladesh’s garment manufacturing industry.
“Our production cost has increased vastly due to various reasons. Besides, we have been able to develop our products’ quality. But buyers do not maintain responsible buying practices. They want to buy the products at the same cheap rate that was set long ago,” maintained Mohiuddin Rubel, representative of Bangladesh at the United States and Managing Director of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange and also Director of Denim Expert Limited, while speaking to the media.
As per the NBR data, in the fiscal year 2018-19, unit price of apparel product was US $ 13.37/kg, while it was US $ 13.18/kg in fiscal year 2017-18, US $ 13.74/kg in 2016-17 fiscal year and US $ 14.04/kg in fiscal year 2015-16.
Despite increase in unit price by 1.42 per cent in fiscal year 2018-19, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of value addition during FY2015-16 to July-April FY 2018-19 showed a negative trend of 1.61 per cent, highlighted the data.
Bangladesh’s apparel exports have lost 3.64 per cent value in terms of price per unit during 2014-2018, whereas Vietnam’s price has gone up, observed BGMEA President Rubana Huq, who blamed in part lack of value addition and role of buying houses in negotiating business deals, for the same.
