The Bangladesh Institute of Development Research (BIDS) and Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI) will publish regular manufacturing indexes to highlight the trends and provide reliable information on the industrial sectors including textile, garment, pharmaceuticals and leather.
A stakeholder consultation meeting was held on Saturday at the BIDS conference room to discuss the research initiative titled "BIDS-BCI Industry 100 Index", which will focus on large and medium manufacturing industries across various sectors, according to a statement.
The meeting was presided over by BIDS Director General Dr AK Enamul Haque, while BIDS Research Director Kazi Iqbal presented the keynote address.
In his speech, Mr Haque said, "We always hear about the good or bad state of the industry, but there is no relevant data available to support this statement."
In continuation of this, he said, they planned to develop a manufacturing index, but later decided to do the work jointly with BCI.
BIDS will do the technical work of conducting research, data collection, processing, and analysis.
BCI President Mr Chowdhury said the manufacturing sector of the country is not receiving the policy support it requires.
In many cases, the manufacturing sector is being mixed with the service sector and trading business, he said, stressing the need for real-time data and added that they are not always able to present accurate information to the policymakers at the right time.
According to the statement, the research will be conducted mainly on readymade garments, textiles and spinning, garment accessories, pharmaceuticals, plastics and rubber, leather and leather products, food processing and agricultural equipment, light engineering, furniture, automobiles and motorbikes, ICT/software, electrical and electronics, ceramics and cement and metallic industries (iron and steel).
Munni_fe@yahoo.com
