The ongoing energy crisis is severely affecting garment production and shipments from factories, especially those located in the Ashulia and Gazipur industrial belts, industry insiders say.
They claim that the production capacity of the factories has decreased by 25-30 per cent due to the lack of required gas and electricity.
Readymade garment (RMG) sector leaders on Monday held a meeting with the energy minister and called for uninterrupted energy supply.
They also requested cooperation in resolving the existing gas and electricity crises in the industry and expanding renewable energy to continue production in the RMG sector.
A delegation of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) led by its President Mahmud Hasan Khan met Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud and State Minister Anindya Islam Amit.
They presented their demands at the meeting.
Energy Secretary Mohammad Saiful Islam and BGMEA vice-presidents Selim Rahman and Mizanur Rahman were also present in the meeting.
The BGMEA said the factories located in the main industrial belts of Ashulia and Gazipur on average need 400-450 litres of diesel to run generators during lead-shedding of up to four hours.
It recently asked its member factories to provide the daily requirement of diesel to run generators during power cuts of up to four hours in order to continue production.
Some 266 factories informed the trade body that they would need about 2,64,174 litres of diesel daily if there were four hours of load-shedding on average.
At the meeting, the BGMEA president said though buyers had regained confidence after the national elections, the global market was again facing challenges due to the Middle East war.
The garment industry was in a fragile situation due to the energy crisis caused by the war at a time when neighbouring countries were ahead in energy security, he noted.
"The production capacity of factories has declined by 25-30 per cent as factories are not getting the required gas and electricity," he said.
Production and shipments were being severely disrupted due to the lack of sufficient diesel to run generators, especially in the industrial areas in Gazipur and Ashulia, during load-shedding, he added.
The BGMEA leader further said the overall production cost had also gone up due to the increase in the prices of raw materials and the cost of transporting goods caused by the energy crisis.
Talking to The Financial Express, BGMEA Vice President Mizanur Rahman said a factory needed 400-450 litres of diesel daily to run generators as it faced four to five hours of load-shedding during working hours.
He said they had sought the government's support so that factories would get uninterrupted energy supply.
The BGMEA delegation made a number of proposals in this regard, including ensuring the prompt supply of diesel to garment factories from filling stations under special arrangements.
Mizanur said the minister had assured them of introducing fuel cards so that factories could buy diesel from the designated filling stations in their nearby areas.
The trade body's other demands included providing emergency gas connections, especially for small and medium-sized factories and those having boiler capacities ranging from 300kg to 500kg, and supplying gas on an equal basis to all industries located in the industrial belts on the outskirts of Dhaka.
It also requested installing at least two additional floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) within the shortest possible time and facilitating the process of installing electronic volume corrector (EVC) metres in the industrial sector.
The BGMEA proposed reducing production costs and cutting the government's subsidy burden by withdrawing all types of taxes and VAT on imported fuel at the import and consumer levels.
Emphasising renewable energy, it called for special duty concessions on the import of solar PV system equipment and proposed reducing the existing high duty (ranging from 28.73 per cent to 61.80 per cent) on essential equipment like solar panels, inverters, DC cables, and battery energy storage system (BESS) to 1.0 per cent.
Munni_fe@yahoo.com