Bangladesh will not be able to export $50 billion-worth apparel products by 2021 because of low valuation and declining global trade, according to Rubana Huq, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), yesterday. “We should concentrate more on value addition rather than setting numbers (export target),” she told a programme on the resilience of the RMG sector’s supply chain organised by the Planning Commission at Bangabandhu International Conference Center. She said the target was set in 2014, just one year after the Rana Plaza collapse, but the world market now was going down because of declining trade and consumption. According to World Trade Organisation, the world trade forecast took a downward turn to 1.2 percent for 2019 from a previous 2.6 percent. She questioned why this target had been set as there was no significant value addition occurring in the garment industry. “Our target should be on adding more value, not just a number,” said Huq. She said RMG’s contribution to the GDP was only 11 percent, which clearly indicated that the value addition was very little. Huq said the garment sector was going through a very bad time as exports had witnessed negative growth of over 6 percent in the past five months of the fiscal year. She pointed out some reasons behind the RMG’s lower growth including economic recession around the world and pressure from the nation’s currency. The BGMEA president stressed on having a plan for diversification of industries. She said the Accord and Alliance came in 2013 with some prescriptions where the national context was missing. One example is that fire alarm systems were imported follow their prescription but those did not work in Bangladesh for inconsistencies with the country’s humidity patterns. “We have spent $1.5 billion in the process. Is this a joke?”
