Pacific Jeans MD puts thrust on

Our Ctg Correspondent Md Nasiruddin is the Managing Director of Pacific Jeans Ltd, one of the country's leading readymade garment exporters and a pioneer in premium jeans manufacturing. The company is located in the CEPZ, with four production units. He has been working relentlessly to promote RMG industry having contributed enormously to the national economy, for which he has been awarded five consecutive national export trophies and business person of the year by the government of Bangladesh and an Export Excellence Award from the HongKong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in the year 2010. The Financial Express (FE) interviewed him in his chamber at the CEPZ on the occasion of the founding ceremony of the national English daily. FE: Let us start with your career as an entrepreneur. Nasiruddin: I belong to a traditional business family. I got myself involved in the business in 1968. My commencement took place in industrial sector in 1978 by setting up a steel manufacturing and re-rolling mills and later on a ship breaking yard at Sitakunda which was one of the pioneering yards in ship breaking industry. Anticipating the vast opportunity in RMG sector I started my venture in apparel industry in 1983. Since then I have experienced a remarkable journey in this business as it has flourished enormously over the last 28 years. FE: Was it located here in the Chittagong Export Processing Zone in the beginning? Nasiruddin: No. Initially our company was set up at Patharghata in the port city of Chittagong known as NZN Garments with 800 employees. Being inspired by the initial success we founded Pacific Jeans Ltd at CEPZ in 1994. FE: How did you earn goodwill in the business? Nasiruddin: We believe good-will is the product of commitment to quality, on-time delivery and efficiency. By putting them into our practice we've been able to achieve confidence of world's renowned retailers as one of the leading premium jeans manufacturer. We always adopt cutting edge technology in the production process to be capable to serve any premium brands. We always focused on value added products, market diversification looking for new export destinations around the globe. Recently, we've successfully diversified to a non-traditional market like Japan. FE: Why did you target Japan? Nasiruddin: World apparel market scenario is ever changing. Though US & EU have been the traditional markets for RMG, the economic down-turn and sluggish growth is alarming for the manufacturers. To diversify the market and minimizing the risk of being very much dependent on these traditional markets, exploring the new destination has become crucial. Japan is the world's third largest economy and we've learned that its fashion retail chains are as structured as western countries which offer a new opening for the apparel manufacturers. FE: What about your future plan in the RMG export? Nasiruddin: Our future plan is to explore new markets globally. In doing this we continuously upgrade the production process. Historically, China has been very dominant in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey and Russia. But now they are facing problems in terms of too high wages and high cost of production. Gradually they are becoming less competitive which opens up huge potential for Bangladesh RMG industry because China's presence in the global apparel market (both traditional and non-traditional) was very much dominant. Another potential market in the region is our neighbouring India. In the next 45 years the scenario will change in the RMG sector if we can capitalize the advantage. The third potential market is the Central America specially Brazil and Mexico. The government can play a major role by enhancing and strengthening bilateral trade policies with these countries. The more the policies made easier the business will grow further and these potential markets will contribute a lot in the export of RMG from Bangladesh. One of the major challenges in building up relationship with these countries is that of language problem. Over the last three years they have become very much interested towards Bangladesh. I think this is a big opportunity for Bangladeshi exporters to enter these markets. FE: Labour unrest in the garment industries is also a great problem as some factories do not comply with the laws relating to wages and benefits. How do you look at it? Nasiruddin: Well. There is no such problem with us. We don't say they are our workers. We treat them as our resources and we can turn these resources into important workforces. Our company is very much serious about compliances of the code of conduct, social responsibility and welfare activities for our employees. We have separate primary, high school and college for education of their children. We have a very strong separate welfare wing called Pacific Jeans Foundation for the employees, through which we are rendering welfare services and social activities to them. FE: How many employees are there in the Pacific Jeans Ltd? Nasiruddin: Currently we have over 22,000 people on our employment list. Production is running on in seven units, all in Chittagong. Four of them are in the CEPZ and three outside. We have a good number of women employees who have been specialized on jeans and casual wears. FE: Recently the government has enhanced price hike of electricity. BGMEA leaders fear that it will increase the cost of doing business. Nasiruddin: Yes, the apparel sector of the country will lose competitiveness in the global market as this move will increase both production and transportation costs. The prices of items that we are producing now were settled earlier through negotiation with the buyers. That is why the hike of electricity price will reduce our profit margins. FE: The industries and businesses in Chittagong are suffering from gas starvation and many plants have suspended production due to gas staggering for over four months. Nasiruddin: Unlike any other part of the country the government has imposed rationing of gas in Chittagong where a good number of major industries are located. It is the duty of the government to provide gas to the industries. The Prime Minister's advisor for energy Dr. Taufiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury said last August at a meeting with the BGMEA leaders in Chittagong that Semutang gas will be provided to the gas-starved industries in this region from September 2011. But only on December 4, three months later, the Semutang gas production started and the authority has shifted from its earlier commitment and decided to supply the gas to fertilizer industries, which is very unfortunate.