The state-run Department of Textile (DoT) has been empowered to provide services to the country’s textile and clothing industry, officials said.Besides, all textile and clothing industries including readymade garment, cotton and fabrics will also require to get registered with the department for running their business in the country, they said.Also, buying house owners for the first time would come under the department, they added.Such provisions have been incorporated into the latest ‘Textile Law 2018’. The government issued a gazette notification on October 01 in this connection.A one stop service centre will be set up so that entrepreneurs and investors get required services including approval, clearance, and licence within the shortest possible time, according to the law.The proposed centre will also help implement projects related to the textile and clothing industry.The formation and activities of the proposed centre will be administered by the rules.”The Department of Textile as the sponsoring authority will take any required measure aiming to facilitate and provide required supports to the textile and clothing industry,” according to the law.The department’s director general would act as textile registrar and no textile and clothing industry would be operated without having its registration.The law empowers textile registrar to suspend or even cancel registration for giving wrong or false information while getting registered.The entrepreneurs and investors would get registration within 60 days after filing applications.The main purpose of enacting the law is to help meet the local demand for apparel, increase export, generate new employment, attract foreign direct investment and introduce market demand-based curriculum for the textile sector, a textile ministry official said.”Our purpose is to facilitate the textile and clothing industry to help it flourish further and retain global competitiveness at the time when online business is booming,” Mohammad Ismail, director general of the department, told the FE.The Bangladesh Garment Buying House Association (BGBA) president Kazi Iftekhar Hossain welcomed the move, saying the mandatory requirement of registration with the authority would bring all the relevant industries under regulation.Presently, a buying house can operate its business only by obtaining a trade licence from the authorities concerned and there is no obligation to get registered with a supervising body or an association, according to industry people.Some 600 garment-buying houses are registered with the BGBA while an additional 400 to 500 run across the country sans any affiliation with the trade body, they added.Buying houses play an important role in garment-export earning as the majority of the apparel factories are dependent on them, they said.When asked, Mohammad Hatem, vice president of the Exporters Association of Bangladesh, said an entrepreneur has to take licences from some 21 to 22 government agencies to start a business.”We have no problem if the textile department can provide all the required services under the single umbrella as a sponsoring authority,” he said.”If it fails to do so, the registration obligation would be nothing but another door to harassment,” he noted.
