Government’s policy support, creating skilled manpower and embracing global marketing trend are vital for the country’s export-oriented apparel sector, buying house owners said on Saturday. They added that adoption of advanced technologies of industrial revolution (IR 4.0) like automation, robotics and artificial intelligence are also essential for the readymade garments (RMG) sector. Leaders of Bangladesh Garment Buying House Association (BGBA) highlighted the needs of the industry at a press briefing at its office in the city. They thanked the government for framing the Textile Act and discussed the needful for facing the global challenge for the apparel sector. BGBA president Kazi Iftequer Hossain, secretary general Md Aminul Islam and senior vice president Harun-Ur-Rashid attended the briefing among others. Following continuous persuasion, Mr. Hossain said, the government has included buying house operators in the Textile Act 2018 to ensure transparency, order and discipline. “We (BGBA) feel proud for having been integrated into the law.” He said the trade body has been working with the Department of Textile (DoT) for better functioning of the buying houses. Hailing the government’s initiative to establish several textile institutes in the country, the BGBA leader suggested adopting public-private partnership model to set up the institutions. Mentioning the change in the different phases of apparel businesses across the globe, he said: “The present world largely depends on various technologies. Keeping it in view, we should also embrace them as soon as possible.” Bangladesh is now getting a good number of technically educated individuals for the apparel sector, but they lack employability as they are not aware of the new technologies like automation and artificial intelligence. The BGBA leaders said that around 80 per cent of the total business of the apparel sector is conducted via buying houses in the country. There are around 500 members of the BGBA though the actual number is said to be several times higher, sources said. According to them, following the government directives, 37 buying houses got registered with the (DoT) within the official deadline that ended in July last.
