The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association on Tuesday said Bangladesh Bank improperly kept the private sector credit growth target unchanged in the half-yearly monetary policy.The BB should have increased the target, it said.The BGMEA president Siddiqur Rahman at an emergency press conference on the present status of the of the RMG sector held at the association headquarters in the capital Dhaka termed the half-yearly the monetary policy as the re-print of previous policy for July-December of the fiscal year 2016-17.There was no indication in the monetary policy how the situation would be tackled when Brexit hit the British pound price, he said.Siddiqur said that products price fall and negative growth in major export destinations would hit the $50-billion export target from the clothing sector by 2021.According to the BGMEA statistics, in 2015 prices of products in the US were seen a 3.81-per cent fall and the figure was 0.76 per cent in the EU countries. In 2016, the prices of Bangladeshi clothing products were seen over 1-per cent fall in the US market, while in the EU it was 3.19 per cent.Citing a comment made by National Board of Revenue chairman Nojibur Rahman, Siddiqur said, ‘When an important government high official made a negative comment on RMG sector, it hurts us.’Media has reported that the NBR chairman has said the readymade garment exporters are not bringing the export proceeds to Bangladesh, rather they are keeping the fund abroad, Siddiqur mentioned.Recently, there was a report on the media that some of RMG factories, which are not in business operation, are misusing the bond facilities with the help of the BGMEA.The BGMEA president urged the NBR to take action against the dishonest business people instead of making negative comment on the sector.Siddiqur said if any dishonest person siphoned money, the NBR should bring them to book through proper investigation.The BGMEA is loyal to rules and regulations and does not favour any dishonest businessman, he asserted.Replying to a question Siddiqur said that there were rules on formation of wage board for the workers and the government would look into the issues.The BGMEA vice-presidents SM Mannan Kochi and Mohammed Nasir were present at the event.
