Country's printing industry has been experiencing a sluggish business over the last few months mainly due to the prevailing political unrest this is the peak season of the industry.
According to printers, their overall business has registered nearly 60 per cent fall compared to previous years.
They also expressed utter dismay as printing industry is deprived of printing election campaign materials like posters, leaflets, and booklets as the candidates of one-sided polls are reluctant to spend money on publishing those.
"We make 50 per cent of our profit out of printing of textbooks, key books, calendars, diary etc towards end of the year. But this year our orders fell by nearly 60 per cent," AFM Shah Alam, general secretary of Bangladesh Mudron Shilpa Samity told The Financial Express Monday.
He said the year is about to end, but printers received very few orders of textbooks, calendars, diary etc. Only printing of textbooks is going on but those could not be delivered due to blockades across the country.
During a visit to several hubs of printing presses at Arambagh, Fakirapool, Banglabazar, many printing presses were found closed and few workers sitting idle.
Hasnat Nizam, manager of Haque Printers at Banglabazar, said every year printing press employees work 18 hours a day during the year ending, but this year they cannot work for even 4 hours a day.
Only some textbooks were seen at the presses. They did not receive any orders for diary, calendars, notebooks, etc.
Another blow to the industry at this moment is very small orders from the garment industry," said Mr Shah Alam adding that printing industry receives Tk US$5 billion as backward linkage industry of the garment sector.
He said, "The industry is also facing international competition. It has to pay almost 65 per cent different taxes."
The local industry has been getting 50-60 per cent share of textbook printing for the last four years as India stepped into the business.
Siddikur Rahman, a printing association leader of Banglabazar, said it is a matter of great sorrow that the sector is being deprived of doing business during election time. Each year printing industry enjoys the election period like a festival.
As the printing business has been sluggish, the paper business also remains slow.
Monir Hossain, owner of Monir Paper International of Nyayabazar in Old Dhaka, said he could not open his ledger book in last three days.
Around 7000 printing machines are running in the country now, of which around 1000 have the capacity to produce global standard printing works. This is growing at the rate of 30 per cent per year.
AFM Shah Alam said printing would have been an export item long ago but lack of proper patronage hindered the pace of development of the sector.
Recently Export Promotion Bureau added printing to its export products list.
In August this year, Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) and Bangladesh Mudron Shilpa Samity (BMSS) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to set up a printing industrial estate at a cost of around Tk 2.0 billion.
The new industrial zone, named 'BSCIC Printing Industrial Estate', will be jointly implemented by BSCIC and BMSS and will have 419 plots on 50 acres of land at Sirajdikhan in Munshiganj.
The project is scheduled to be completed by four years where employment opportunity for 17,000 people will be created.
According to government data, about 0.4 million people are employed in the industry.
Political unrest weighs on printing industry
Ismail Hossain | Published: December 24, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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