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The textile market in Bangladesh is growing at a faster clip as annual sales have nearly doubled to $9 billion in a span of five years riding on the production of diversified fabrics and the growing consumption of middle-income people.
Even five years ago, the sales were worth nearly $5 billion, but the cut in reliance on foreign fabrics, the setting up of new machinery and the expanding middle-income groups have pushed up the growth of the local textile and fabrics market.
Among the textile items, saris, lungis, handloom-made towels, fabrics of salwar kameez, panjabi, shirts, trousers, bedsheets and curtains are produced locally.
Mohammad Ali Khokon, president of the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA), says a woman customer consumes 40 metres of fabrics a year, which was 30 metres five years ago.
For a male consumer, it stands at 25 metres, up from 15 metres previously.
In the past, millers in Bangladesh used to produce mainly fabrics for saris and lungis. Now, local producers make the fabrics for shirts, trousers and other expensive items as the demand for quality items has gone up a lot in recent years for the rise in income, Khokon said.
“The rising middle-income groups are fueling the growth of the fabrics made for the local markets.”
Currently, 300 spinning mills, more than 10,000 small, medium and large weaving units and 1,200 dyeing mills are producing textile and fabrics to meet the local demand, said Monsoor Ahmed, chief executive officer of the BTMA.
More than $2 billion worth of textile and fabrics are alone sold during Eid-ul-Fitr, the main sales season for local businessmen and traders.
However, 60 per cent of branded clothing items for women are imported either through formal or informal channels as the demand rockets during the season, said Ahmed.
Zakat clothes are also one of the main items during the Eid-ul-Fitr, Ahmed said, adding that Pahela Baishakh, the first day of the Bengali calendar, is the second busiest shopping season.
In the days leading to Pahela Baishakh, textile and fabric sales fetch more than $1 billion, as people wear locally made clothing items to celebrate the Bengali New Year.
However, the local millers missed the sales bonanza of both Eid-ul-Fitr and Pahela Baishakh in the last two years because of the severe fallouts of Covid-19 as demand plummeted owing to the income drops and job losses of millions of people and the coronavirus restrictions, which disrupted the supply chain.
Now, in keeping pace with the recovery of the global economy, the primary textile sector in Bangladesh is also rebounding, so sales have picked up.
Khorshed Alam, managing director of Little Group, which produces yarn for both local and international markets, says spinners and weavers now produce more polyester fabrics as China has cut back the production of the item because of the higher cost of production.
Moreover, many Bangladeshi importers can’t make a profit by importing the fabrics by paying higher freight charges, which rose to unprecedented levels owing to the pandemic. So, they are sourcing the products from local mills, he said.
The value addition is 20 per cent higher in synthetic fabrics than cotton-made fabrics. “As a result, the millers have found a ready market and are producing more now compared to two years ago.”
The acute power outage faced by Chinese factories has also helped grow Bangladesh’s local fabrics market, as many importers are not buying the item from the country now.
Abdullah Al Mamun, director of Abed Textile Processing Mills, says the higher price of yarn fuelled by a high cost of cotton in international markets has affected the local clothing and fabrics markets to some extent.
Nearly 30 per cent of smaller mills that mainly serve the local customers are suffering as they can’t afford the pricier textile raw material produced from expensive imported cotton, he said.
“Smaller mills can’t afford the high price of yarn and fabrics as their capital base is not as strong as the large primary textile mills.”
BTMA’s Khokon says the local market is growing but has slowed because of the pandemic Covid-19. Moreover, the sales of undeclared fabrics are affecting the growth of the domestic market.
(TDS)
