The Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) has initiated moves to explore the $12.9-billion Japanese knitwear market, targeting the 2020 Summer Olympic Games there.As part of the moves, an 81-member delegation, led by BKMEA president A K M Salim Osman, participated in Fashion World Tokyo 2018 from April 04 to April 06.Local knitwear makers displayed their products in 30 stalls in the largest comprehensive fashion trade show in Japan, and bagged $25 million spot orders from it.”Japan annually imports knitwear products worth $12.9 billion, whereas Bangladesh exports items worth $400 million there. It is only 3.0 per cent of the total knitwear import,” BKMEA said in a statement issued on Thursday.Due to Japanese buyers’ much concern over quality of products and their heavy dependency on China, the market was not open for Bangladesh for a long time.Now China’s shift to capital-intensive industry and Japan’s China-plus policy have created immense export potentiality for Bangladeshi knit items there, it also said.During Fashion World Tokyo, a seminar on future and potentiality of knitwear products was held, where 113 Japanese textile representatives attended.The BKMEA delegation held meetings with the officials of Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Japan Textile Import Association and Japan External Trade Organization.Japanese investors are keen to invest in the proposed economic zone at Shantir Char in Narayanganj, and a delegation will visit Bangladesh in November to explore investment potentials in the country, the statement added.Though Vietnamese apparel items have already grabbed the Japanese market with a strong foothold, Bangladesh could be the top knitwear exporter there. The local knit sector is growing with strong backward linkage industry and also manufacturing quality products, BKMEA opined.Bangladeshi knitwear makers received good response from the buyers at the trade show, and it is hoped that the country’s exports there will increase by 25 per cent by 2020, the BKMEA statement further said.Many visitors are expected to visit Japan during Summer Olympic Games, to be held from July 20 to August 09, 2020, and they will need a large number of basic knitwear items, including t-shirt, polo shirt and sweater.BKMEA expects that local exporters will get these orders shortly and start shipment of their products from July, it added.
