Garment manufacturers and exporters very early in their corporate life realized that it is important to develop the accessory industry equally fast to keep pace with the garment exports. This realization also dawned early on the Mondol Group, which though initiated as a garmenting company in 1991 producing knitted garments, ventured into accessories business by floating two companies namely Montrims Ltd. and Trims International BD Ltd. in 2003 with a view to provide backward linkage support to Bangladesh’s export oriented garment units. Today with manpower of about 3,500 people, Mondol is standing at a group turnover of US $ 200, looking at crossing US $ 250 million in next FY with its expansions in the pipeline. Montrims Limited claims to have the largest accessory manufacturing plant in Asia. Mohammed Mashud HK Siddique, Head Sales & Marketing (Garments & Accessories Division) met Team Apparel Online-Bangladesh at Batexpo recently…
[bleft]“Accessories are a US $ 1.5 billion industry in Bangladesh; altogether we and other companies in the market are covering just US $ 600 million, so still US $ 900 millions to go.” [/bleft]
Among the largest groups in Bangladesh having 35 units, out of which 19 are garment units with 175 lines, producing around 7 million pieces of garment every month and 80 tonnes of finished knitted fabric per day, Montrims Limited was satisfied to be present at Batexpo so that they could meet old clients and also introduce the company to some new buyers. Not resting on its laurels, the company is looking at expanding its capacity in knitting, garmenting and accessories. “We have plans to increase our garmenting lines up to 250 and increasing our finished fabric to 110 tonnes per day; right now we have around 540 circular knits,” says Mashud.
Though Montrims is producing many accessories like hangers, sewing threads, rubber patch etc., the core products of the company in accessories are woven labels (3 million plus capacity per day), printed care labels (4.5 million per day capacity) and off-set items like hand tags (2.5 to 3 million per day). Last year the accessory business generated a turnover of US $ 32 million and this year’s target is to touch US $ 50 million. “Actually we specialize in knits so our accessories division grew up with our knits business. Since we don’t do woven garments so we are not producing zippers and buttons,” reasons Mashud. This year the company is targeting a huge leap in its accessories business.
Nominated for its trims by most of the top brands and retailers like Target-Australia, Tesco-UK, Metallan-UK, H&M, German giant Kik, Cheebo, Next, La Radoute, Montrims is also producing poly bags with a capacity of one million plus per day in different sizes. “We also have a heat transfer units which has the capacity close to one million per day,” informs Mashud.
