The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and the Chittagong City Corporation will build an apparel zone at Kalurghat in Chittagong for the readymade garment factories that are facing compliance challenges and need relocation.The apparel zone will be setup in line with the safety standard set by the global buyers and retailers maintaining the conditions of the National Action Plan provided by the government. Small and medium entrepreneurs who are running their factories in shared and faulty buildings will get priority in the zone,’ BGMEA vice-president Mohammed Nasir told New Age on Saturday.He said the CCC would develop the zone on its own land with the facilities of central effluent treatment plant, fire station, child care centre and cargo lift and the entrepreneurs would have to pay 10 per cent of total cost as down payment.To build the Chittagong Apparel Zone a memorandum of understanding between the BGMEA and the CCC is scheduled to be signed today at GEC Convention Hall in the port city.Many small and medium entrepreneurs in the Chittagong zone have been facing difficulties to make the units complaint as per the recommendations of the European and North American buyers’ groups as the factories are located in rented buildings, Nasir said.Recently, Chittagong city mayor AZM Nasir Uddin agreed to provide 10.36 acres of land and to develop the zone, he said.The BGMEA leader said an agreement with a tenure of 40 years at least 11 seven-storey buildings will be built on the land and the size of each floor will be 20,000 sft.It will be possible to accommodate 30 garment factories in the zone and the receivers of allocation will have to pay the construction cost by phases,’ he said.The factory owners will have to pay Tk 10 for per sft as monthly rent and the rate will be increased by 5 per cent in each five-year, according to the BGMEA.The BGMEA hopes that the construction of the zone will be completed within two years and the association will seek applications from the entrepreneurs who are interested to relocate their factories to the zone.
