Shifting consumers\\\' taste helps rev up T-shirt shipment

T-shirt now leads the overall export of readymade garments following a phenomenal change of consumer taste for this wear across the globe, making Bangladesh second to only China in this trade.     
Industry-insiders informed The Financial Express about what is being reckoned as a silent revolution in the apparel sector and said orders for T-shirt are heading for Bangladesh bypassing key competitors like China and India.
The T-shirt makers fetched 24.5 per cent of the overall incomes from garment exports and accounted for nearly 50 per cent of the knitwear shipments.
Bangladesh has become world's second-largest T-shirt exporter after China as she shipped this kind of clothing worth around $6.00 billion around the world in the last financial year (FY'14).
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) research cell found out this transmutation in consumer taste and export situation.
It showed nearly 1,000 factories around the capital, Dhaka, and the port city of Chittagong and elsewhere involved with T-shirt business.
To cope with the increasing demand for T-shirt, country's knitwear industry is poised to enter a new era of business with massive expansion and significant upgrading.
"We are now the second-largest exporter of T-shirts to the world market after China due to quality products and competitive price," president of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) AKM Salim Osman told the FE.
He said competitive wage rates, easily trainable local workforce and entrepreneurial skills combined with government policy support have been helping significant growth of the T-shirt industry.
He said, "The contribution of woven and knitwear was almost similar in the country's export figures as 41 per cent and 39 per cent respectively out of total exports. Some 80 per cent of the knit garments like T-shirts go to the EU market."
Country's knitwear industry is going to be almost self-sufficient in production of fabrics and yarns, which is also helping significant growth of the T-shirt sub-sector.
With tremendous growth of T-shirt export in the knitwear industry the capacity of backward linkages, including button and zipper, also gradually increased in recent times.
Fazlul Hoque, Managing Director of Knit Fashion in Narayanganj, said for T-shirt production the local sources are providing more than 90 percent fabrics out of the total requirement.
He said for beater quality and competitive prince range among 93 countries, a large number of international brands like Charles Voegele, G-Star, Jack and Jones, s.Oliver, River Island, H&M, C&A, PVH and GAP have turned to Bangladesh in last couple of years for T-shirt, the sub-sector of knitwear industry.
According to BKMEA the growth of spinning mills also stepped up with the growth of knitwear exports as a total number of yarn-manufacturing industries was 383 in the country whereas fabric-manufacturing units was 743.
In the backward linkages like knitting, dyeing and spinning industries, now the total investment comes to more than US$5.03 billion.
Mohammad Hatem, Managing Director of MB Knit Fashion, said due to quality of T-shirt the leading international buyers are turning over their orders to Bangladesh from Pakistan, Turkey, India and China.
Mr. Hatem, also vice-president of BKMEA, said many of local companies turned to producing T-shirt fabrics. As a result, the local manufacturers don't have to depend on import. And such developments are helping the country capture the increasing demand on the international market.
"There are more than 261 composite factories in the knitwear industry. With the composite units many garment industries have their own dyeing and finishing units. The separate dyeing and finishing industries also have grown up over the time to support the sector," he said.