Top eleven foreign buyers, being worried about the ongoing blockade and political unrest, have urged the RMG exporters to push the political leaders and civil society members to raise voice for immediate restoration of a business-friendly atmosphere in the country. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) President Md Atiqul Islam informed this at a roundtable held at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) auditorium in the city Tuesday. Top retailers are calling me and asking what’s going on here. They are worried,” Islam said. They (retailers) will not speak in public—they will not issue any press release. But, they will quit business from Bangladesh slowly,” the BGMEA president added. He said top eleven global retailers (RMG product buyers) import a significant portion of Bangladesh’s RMG goods, which is around 50 percent of the annual RMG export. They are big. We won’t be able to recover if anything happens,” he said without disclosing the names of top buyers He said he received phone calls from buyers in the morning and promised the buyers to get back to them to update them about the political climate here after completing his speech at the PRI roundtable Islam maintained, “However, we should not ignore the small buyers. We must take care of all the buyers to achieve the target of $50 billion export by 2021. He said Bangladesh needs to export $90 crore (Tk 690 crore) worth of RMG goods every single day to achieve the target set by the government and RMG entrepreneurs to lead the country towards graduating to a middle-income nation by 2021. So, every single day is important and we already lost 14 days,” the BGMEA chief said. He alleged that political leaders are not paying heed to their woes. Atiqul Islam said the RMG exporters have been facing a lot of pressures domestically and internationally. According to him, domestic pressures including higher cost of production in the backdrop of higher compliance demand, wage hike, hike in the price of raw materials, land and utility services along with external pressures including loss of competitiveness in the international market due to political instability at home and rapid rise of Cambodia as a RMG exporter among the least-developed countries after Bangladesh. Political leaders are not trying to understand our problems,” he said. Islam said Bangladesh is the only country in the world where two international buyers’ platforms —Alliance and Accord – have been working to enhance skills, compliance and productivity of the RMG industry with the goal to ensure development and improve living standards of people. We need to look at building high-tech infrastructures and add higher value to RMG products but we are facing political hurdles. It is destructive for us. We are in real trouble. Please raise your voice and speak for us,” a helpless Islam made the call upon academics, economists, former diplomats, researchers and head of different international agencies and prominent civil society members present at the PRI roundtable. He said the government can play much pro-active role to flourish the RMG export. Suppose, in Russia, the government can seek for duty-free exports of RMG products as we have given them the work of establishing a nuke power plant and accelerate bi-lateral relations. But, the government is not doing so,” he said. In reality, the government rather has set higher price of land at proposed Bausia Garment Village where the entrepreneurs will need to develop land, which is now under water, and get ready other arrangements to connect with infrastructures facilities provided by the government. On the other hand, buyers have given us a five-year timeframe for shifting factories located at shared building to own-buildings. Already two years passed. You can see that how much pressure is on us,” Atiqul Islam said. He said an Indian buyer had imported RMG goods worth of $5.5 million from a Bangladeshi exporters few years back but didn’t make the payment. The issue has been raised at different forums even with representatives of Indian government. But, all attempts went in vain. Our government can play a strong role in realizing the genuine claim of our exporter, who is now suffering with huge burden of bank loans, while the relations between Bangladesh and India gets better than before,” the BGMEA president said. He said international retailers have found only 2 percent factories non-compliant and it means that the current prospective of Bangladesh’s RMG industry is bright if there is no political problem. The PRI, in collaboration with DFID, had organized the roundtable on “Regulatory Challenges for Trade and Investment in Bangladesh”. PRI chairperson Dr Zaidi Sattar presided over the function. PRI vice chairman Dr Sadiq Ahmed presented a key-note paper on the topic. Executive Chairman of Board of Investment Dr S.A Samad spoke as chief guest while former ambassador Farooq Sobhan, PRI executive director Dr Ahsan H Mansur, director of Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute Mostafa Abid Khan, BIDS director general Mustafa Kamal Mujeri, Monem Group managing director Moinuddin Monem and FBCCI director Abdul Huque addressed, among others.
