The government has taken an initiative to allocate 500 acres of land to the country’s readymade garment exporters for setting up an ‘RMG Block’ in the Mirsarai Special Economic Zone of Chittagong.The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association on Saturday asked its members to inform the trade body within seven days about their interest in buying industrial plots in the SEZ.In a circular, BGMEA president Md Siddiqur Rahman said that the trade body started talks with the Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority over allocating an area of 500 acres of land in the Mirsarai SEZ exclusively to the RMG factory owners.In the circular, he said that strategically the Mirsarai economic zone was important for the export-oriented industries as the zone is being developed near to the country’s biggest seaport.The zone has already drawn the attention of local and foreign investors and many of them expressed their interest for plots in the zone, Siddiq said.‘The government is always positive about allocating plots to the RMG factory owners in the economic zone and now we will have to be prepared to get the facility,’ the BGMEA president told New Age on Sunday.He said that the area of land for the RMG sector would be decided based on the response from the RMG exporters as the BGMEA sent letter to its members to inform the trade body about their readiness.According to the BGMEA circular, the area of each plot would be 1 acre and the price of the plot would be Tk 1 crore.Interested RMG factory owners would have to pay 25 per cent of total land price as booking money (non-refundable) and they would get instalment facility to pay the land price.The factory owners who are facing compliance-related issues can relocate their factories to the zone, Siddiq said.As per the rules of BEZA, the investors in the economic zone would get the entire utility services on priority basis, he said.The BGMEA president hoped that all RMG factory owners would be interested to get a plot in the Mirsarai economic zone due to its location.
