Bangladesh’s apparel manufacturing sector’s compliance quotient has been fortified with the freshly proposed law – Textile Industries Establishment Act-2015. The law has been devised to regulate illegal units (often small scale ancillary units feeding large scale manufacturers). Under the law, Directorate of Textile has been proposed to be the effective ‘sponsoring authority’ for the sector. The law also directs that all textile and apparel manufacturing units, whether new or existing, be run under the act. Officers designated from the directorate can inspect factories at any time and the factories would be bound to provide documents as per requirements of the directorate. The textile directorate will establish a database of the industries based on the information provided by the factories, the draft said.
Stakeholders, like BKMEA, have expressed dissatisfaction over the clause which states that the units renew their licences every 3 years. The association has suggested the period of renewal be 10 years instead.
