Around 2000 knitwear manufacturers of the country are facing difficulties in meeting the growing demand from overseas buyers as frequent power outages and shortfall in gas supply were impeding the production capacity, industry insiders said Friday.
They said each and every knitwear manufacturer now needs to enhance their production capacity by at least 20 per cent as export orders for the knit items like, singlet, T-shirt, shirt, vest, jackets and panty were increasing substantially.
"We need to enhance our capacity by 20 per cent to meet the demand but gas and power crises are making our efforts to go in vain," Fazlul Haque, president of Bangladesh Association Knitwear Manufactures and Exporters Association, said.
He said fresh investment in the sector recorded around 22 per cent growth in the outgoing fiscal 2007-08 year.
Garments including knitwear and woven accounted for more than 76 per cent of the country's $14.11 billion export trade last fiscal.
The country's knitwear and woven garment exporters in the last fiscal fetched over $5.53 billion and $5.17 billion respectively from exporting their products to Europe and USA.
A K M Zahidul Hoq Bhuiyan, managing director of Victory Knittings Pvt Ltd, said: "I am receiving 20-22 per cent more export orders than that I received in the same period of last year. Now I need to enhance production otherwise I will miss the shipment deadline."
"Some of my colleagues added new machinery or established new units in their factories but they could not start production for shortage of gas. I am reluctant to take such a risk because I may have to face the same situation," he said.
Echoing a similar view, Al Haj Abdur Rashid, chairman of Obeid Knitwear (Pvt) Ltd, said he has abandoned his plan to go for fresh investment to enhance capacity, as there is no assurance of electricity and gas supply.
The need for uninterrupted gas supply in a factory for fabrics knitting, dying and better finishing is indispensable, the BKMEA president said, adding that any disruption in supply of gas causes huge production losses due to quality deterioration.
When the manufacturers are failing to bag more orders, as China is leaving the market, he said, "How can we hope that the sector will grew 25 per cent by the end of the current fiscal."
Md Shahidul Islam, second vice president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said a new window of opportunity is there for exporting more knit items as China is moving towards manufacturing high valued products.
"Competitors such as India, Pakistan and Cambodia will take the benefit following our failure to secure additional orders due to inadequate capacity," he added.
Power, gas crises stunt knitwear export growth
Naim-Ul-Karim | Published: August 23, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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