Bangladesh export trade is heavily dependent on a few products like ready-made garments (RMG) including woven and Knit, home textile, jute and jute goods, leather and leather goods and frozen Fish. Among them, RMG itself earns more than 80 per cent of foreign currency. Major destination of our RMG is the European Union (EU) and achievement of export target of Bangladesh mainly depends on the export of RMG to EU. But it is a matter of grave concern that due to ongoing political turmoil foreign buyers, especially EU buyers, are shifting their export orders to other countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, India and Laos. In addition to that, recently the EU has granted GSP (generalised system of references) facility to Pakistan which will be effect from January 2014. Pakistan has strong backward linkage and it has also expertise in this sector.
Since Bangladesh has been suffering from political unrest for last several months and there has been no visible sign of improvement shortly so this opportunity would be taken over by the RMG businessmen of Pakistan. It is really an ominous signal for our RMG which is termed as the life blood of Bangladesh economy. Moreover, several untoward casualties in the RMG enterprises have tarnished the image of Bangladesh before the world. Since then Bangladesh RMG industry has been facing a hard time. In order to sustain this sector following initiatives may be considered on an urgent basis:
1. The government and opposition should treat this sector with utmost priority and exempt it from all sorts of political activities;
2. Ensuring extra security measure (patrolling of highway by police) on Dhaka- Chittagong highway while dispatching their goods for shipment;
3. Deployment of sufficient number of industrial police when needed ;
4. Close monitoring on labour unrest and giving time-bound advice to the concerned people to handle any problem;
5. Formaton of a sub-committee for observing the compliance status of the RMG enterprises in accordance with the buyers' requirement;
6. Regular high-level talks with EU representatives and exchange of delegation.
About 4.0 million people work in the RMG sector and most of them are women. So with a view to protectng this huge employment sector concerted efforts from both the government and private sector is highly needed. We hope the ongoing political turmoil will soon be over and the RMG sector will be able keep the growth momentum.
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