Mapped in Bangladesh, an initiative of Brac University has found 3,485 export-oriented readymade garment factories with around 27 lakh of workers in the country.
The MiB, a project by the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development of Brac University, has recently completed collecting and mapping all the export-oriented RMG industries in Bangladesh after four years of launching the project in 2017.
Considering the growing need for credible, industry-wide data on the number of factories, their locations, and the number of workers, Brac University with lead funding from the C&A Foundation and support from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association is implementing the project.
The MiB has collected information, including factory name, address, location, establishment year, factory type, membership, inspection, type of products the factory produces, affiliations with different brands, certification, type of factory premise, number of workers, name, and distance to the nearest fire station and medical service centre.
Out of the 3,485 factories, 1,951 are registered with the BGMEA, 520 are registered with the BKMEA, and 257 are listed with both the trade bodies, according to data.
The data showed that 757 factories under the system were not members of any of the trade bodies.
The RMG map showed that there were a total of 26,92,467 workers in the export-oriented garment sector. Of the workers, 58.2 percent is female.
RMG factory owners have claimed that there are more than 40 lakh workers in the sector for the last decade without providing any data.
The MiB identified that out of 3,485 export-oriented RMG factories, 3,409 units are located in four districts and 76 factories are in the rest 60 districts.
Of the 3,409 factories, 1,351 are located in Dhaka, 1,057 in Gazipur, 615 in Narayanganj, and 386 in Chattogram.
BGMEA president Faruque Hassan disagreed with the number of workers but accepted the number of factories shown in the MiB data.
