Newly elected president of Bangladesh Garment Manufac-turers and Exporters Association, Siddiqur Rahman, took over charge of the trade body for two years yesterday.Outgoing BGMEA President Atiqul Islam handed over responsibility of the trade body to Rahman at the 32nd annual general meeting at the BGMEA office in Dhaka. Seven vice-presidents of BGMEA also took over their responsibilities at the event for 2015 and 2016.Islam also unveiled a roadmap to achieve the target to export apparel worth $50 billion by 2021.Last December, BGMEA adopted the recommendations for the roadmap by hosting the Dhaka Apparel Summit, where garment makers, exporters, international retailers and exporters from home and abroad gave their feedback on achieving the export target.In the roadmap, Islam prioritised improving infrastructure, lowering the bank interest rate, diversifying markets and products, and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of power and gas to the industrial units to increase workers’ productivity and efficiency.“We sent the roadmap to the offices of the prime minister and commerce, labour and planning ministries to take measures to assist in achieving the export target,” Islam said. “The target might seem ambitious to many, but it is attainable if we work together. We need garment export growth at 11 percent year-on-year to achieve the target by 2021.”Bangladesh will need an additional 20 lakh workers from the existing 44 lakh in the sector to attain the target, he said.Islam said fabric consumption will also reach $30 billion from the existing $10 billion, according to the roadmap. “So, Bangladesh will need to improve the capacities of the backward linkage industries to supply raw materials.”By 2021, the apparel sector will consume accessories worth $10 billion, rising from $5 billion at present, which will also create new entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for the unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workforce, he said.“We need to strengthen apparel diplomacy as the garment business of Bangladesh reached its current position mainly for the trade privileges offered by the developed and developing countries.”Bangladesh will have to grab an 8 percent share of the then $650 billion global market to attain its export target, according to the roadmap. The country currently caters to 5 percent of the $450 billion global apparel market.Garment exports grew 4.08 percent to $25.5 billion in fiscal 2014-15, according to data from the Export Promotion Bureau. The export earning from the apparel sector was 5.2 percent below the annual target of $26.9 billion at the time.
