The US government’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for the African Least Developed Countries (LDCs) has opened up a new opportunity for Bangladesh’s RMG sector. Under the AGOA the African LDCs will enjoy zero duty benefits for exporting their products to the US market and this facility will be available for next ten years. Capitalising this opportunity, DBL Group, one of the largest apparel group in Bangladesh, has decided to invest 100 million US Dollar to set up a garment factory in Ethiopia. The DBL Group will develop the integrated textile and garment factory in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, which is expected to go into production in February next year. A total of 3500 workers including 150 executives will be employed in the Ethiopian factory. All of them would be recruited from Bangladesh. Currently, DBL Group, which produces items from yarn to garments, employs 22,600 workers in different factories in Bangladesh. The group is expecting shipment of apparel worth 340 million US Dollar by the end of the current fiscal, which was about 320 million dollar in last fiscal. Bangladesh though a LDC country does not enjoy zero duty benefits in US market as US government suspended the generalized system of preferences (GSP) for Bangladesh in June 2013 after the collapse of Rana Plaza. Besides investment in Bangladesh is facing manifold hurdles. Energy crisis and lack of infrastructure is hindering the growth of the sector. Garment manufacturers allege that factories in Gazipur area are facing severe gas crisis, which compel them to incur huge loss to maintain their production line. The second problem is scarcity of land to establish factory. Besides that cost of doing business in Bangladesh is much higher compare to other developing countries. All these factors have encouraged Bangladeshi investors to look for alternative place for investment, they said.
