Woven-textile mills of the country meet only 35 per cent of thread and yarns required by the booming garment sector, which import the rest from abroad draining out a huge amount of hard earned foreign currency. However the textile mills could have met all the demands of the garment sector had there been adequate investment for expansion of production and capacity of textile mills sector. Due to the lack of investment and policy support the woven-textile mills could not thrive to its optimum level, industry sources said. Local business community till to date have invested more than $5 billion in the textile sector, mostly in the spinning, leaving aside letting aside the weaving. According to Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) data capital machinery import in the Fiscal Year 2014-15 (FY15) increased by 40.6 per cent to Tk71 billion from Tk50 billion over the corresponding period of FY14. The BTMA President Tapan Chowdhury at a press conference few days back said: “Though we do have good opportunities to feed the exporters for woven textile fabrics but investment to this sector is not happening as the business people see spinning is safer than weaving.” He said this mindset is changing and investors are showing their interests to invest in weaving. Khorshed Alam, a BTMA director said power crisis is a major barrier for weaving investment. The government at time has stopped issuing new licenses to captive power generators and has also doubled gas prices. He said to fulfill the target for exporting $50 billion by the year 2021 the existing steps should be reviewed by the government. Currently local woven textile millers are manufacturing high technology based fabrics with setting up state of the art machinery. But the sector can meet only 35 per cent of the demand for exporting readymade garments as for rest of the fabrics it is needed for billions of dollars to manufacture fabrics comprising artificial and natural cotton made fabrics. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) is importing more than 60 per cent of the fabrics from China, India, Korea and from other countries in duty free and back to back letter of credits. They can source locally only maximum 35 per cent as investments in weaving did not happen for manufacturing such high tech woven fabrics. The BGMEA former President Atiqul Islam said, “We are not getting the fabrics as per our demands.” He said locval investment for weaving is essential to earn $50 billion from export by 2021. He said market for woven fabrics is there but investment is not happening. Another BTMA office bearer requesting unanimous said, “We are losing our hope of doing business in textile industry as the government is generous of allowing cotton yarn import despite local saturation of spinning investment.”
