Home textile exports may fetch $1.0b in next few years

FE Team | Published: September 26, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Naim-Ul-Karim
Export of home textile products can fetch US$1.0 billion by the next few years as many of the country's regional rivals have shifted their focus on producing high-value textiles, industry insiders said on Thursday.
They said exports of home textile items such as bed linen, cushion, blanket, nakshikatha, curtain and pillow will continue to boom in the next years as a recent spike in labour cost has forced dozens of manufacturers of China and some other countries of the region to shift from their traditional products.
Industry insiders said home textile products have the potentials to earn $1.0 billion from export by 2012-13 fiscal year.
"We expect over 30 per cent growth in export in the current fiscal year as our prime competitors are diverting to other high-end products gradually," Maksud Sikder, managing director of Pearsons Textile Limited, told the FE on Thursday.
He further "If the current rate of growth continues, by next four years home textile would emerge as the third highest export earning sector."
The country's home textile exports grew nearly 14 per cent in the fiscal year ending June 2008, when Bangladesh's over 150 exporters earned nearly $300 million mainly from shipments to the European Union and the United States.
A number of countries of north and south America, Europe, Africa, middle and Southeast Asia are major markets of Bangladesh's home textiles.
The demand for home textile to the USA and Europe, which account for Bangladesh's 80 per cent export market, rose sharply in the recent months amid declining shipments from some south and southeast Asian countries including China, Pakistan and India, said the chief of Ramonio Boutique Begum Shelina.
She said home textile manufacturers of China and some other countries have shifted their focus to high valued textile items, as their production cost increased due to soaring wages and inadequate backward linkages.
"We are in a much better shape than our competitors, despite the fact that we also face a number of problems such as power crisis," Mr. Sikder said.
He said "Bangladesh has good backward linkages as the manufacturers get more than 70 per cent raw materials from local sources. Coupled with low labour cost, it makes our products more competitive."
Managing director of Handica Sahabuddin Ahmed said the sector, which has so far created employment to around 60,000 people, will within a few years emerge as another big manufacturing sector after knitwear and woven garments.
He said new buyers from many European countries such as Italy, Britain and France have also shown interest on Bangladeshi home textile, "because of our superior quality and exquisite fashionable designs."