Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) leaders said the number of young and new entrepreneurs in the Ready Made Garments (RMG) sector is decreasing day by day.The sector is confronting adverse situation due to down prices in international market and sluggish pace of export, the leaders said. BGMEA President Md Siddiqur Rahman told the daily Observer that there is no growth in the sector now because of price fall due to various causes, including euro currency’s fall, and Brexit . On contrary, production cost of RMG has risen by 17 percent due to gas supply shortage and its high price. The BGMEA president, however, said the children of senior businessmen are coming in the sector as young entrepreneurs. BGMEA vice-president Md Nasir said the new entrepreneurs’ aversion to the sector impacting it vastly. People do not want to be entrepreneur in the sector as hard competition is prevailing here and they have to wait long time to get profit, said Md Nasir. He also said establishing business institutes and arranging training programmes are needed to provide business concept aiming to bring new entrepreneurs to the sector. A BGMEA figure shows that export growth was 4.37 percent in last six month of 2017 while it was 9.24 percent in the same time of the previous fiscal year. Export declined by 9.11 percent to US, 5.19 to UK, 7.03 percent to Canada, 10.96 percent to Australia and 45.42 percent to Brazil, according to the figure.It needs to gain growth at 12.25 percent per year with a view to achieving 50 million export goal by 2021, the ready made owners estimated. In his opinion on recession at RMG, and lowering number of entrepreneurs in the sector, economist Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman stressed creating newer export market beside making new entrepreneurs.Government assistance and easy bank loan can encourage the young people to be entrepreneur for the sector, RMG experts said. Economist Mirza Abbas, however, said smaller number of new entrepreneurs would not hamper the RMG in fact.
