Despite being in the business of garment manufacturing for than 40 years and supplying to the renowned brands and retailers worldwide, Bangladesh is yet to graduate into manufacturing high-end apparel items, claimed media reports.
Reportedly, even as countries like India and Vietnam – Vietnam forayed into fashion business after Bangladesh but has become a major player in the global high-end garment segment thanks to investment in research and development in design and product quality – made the transition into making value-added and high-end products and thereby benefitted from the premium prices paid for such items, Bangladesh has remained a prominent manufacturer of basic or semi-high-end garment items still as investment in the production of value-added garment items has been less.
The report citing a research carried out by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) maintained that 80 per cent of the garment exports reportedly fall within the price range of US $ 15 per kilogram, and only 20 per cent items get a price more than US $ 15 and a tiny fraction gets US $ 35, and went on to add that as per the BGMEA research, though it is difficult to capture the trend for the product range above US $ 15 per unit, this may be generalised that Bangladesh’s progress towards adding higher values has been slow.
Lack of innovative capabilities in areas of designing and product development and expertise, skills and technologies, and limited diversification in the area of non-cotton area, reportedly are some major challenges towards enhancing Bangladesh’s share in the global fashion market’s high-end segment.
The Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, Ahsan H. Mansur, reportedly underlined that production of high-end garment items requires manmade fibres in which Bangladesh is still very weak, while explaining that the country is strong in making apparels from cotton fibre as nearly 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s garment items are manufactured from cotton.
However, demand for cotton garments is reportedly on the wane globally.
