Suit manufacturing is the flavour of the season… in the last one year around 10 companies have shown keen interest in starting suit or blazer manufacturing facilities and a significant number of companies like Misami, Chad, Ananta and Shanta have already started with or without the support of foreign companies knowing well that it’s not just suits, but Bangladesh, which is the flavour of the world today. Although being touted as a new category, FCI, Standard, East West, Ha-Meem, Debonair and Jamuna Group are already having suit and blazer manufacturing facilities of Bangladesh.
Manufacturing formal and casual shirts for H&M and C&A, New Age Group is setting up 46 sewing lines for stitching suits, both blazers and trousers, along with casual jackets for women. The unit which will be operational 2.5 years henceforth in Ashulia, is being setup in a joint venture with a Chinese suit manufacturer. “This is because of the rising labour costs in China, due to which the buyers are motivated to source from Bangladesh,” shares Arif Ibrahim, Managing Director, New Age Apparel (New Age Group). “It is a purely technical tie-up where the Chinese company would be sharing their technical know-how and other resources with us,” he adds and claims to be the only company that would be manufacturing suits for H&M in Bangladesh with three years buy-back guarantee, and an initial target of 50,000 pieces per month. The total investment in the project is of US $ 2 million and the new company will have two MDs, one from each company, which will change after every two years.
Presently, New Age Group is producing 1.8 million pique polo T-shirts for men and women, which constitutes 70% of its US $ 65 million turnover. The company also does 20 tonnes of knitted fabric daily for producing 1 million T-shirts monthly besides 6,00,000 shirts per month. Majorly working for C&A and H&M, the company also has a hanger manufacturing facility for in-house consumption only, and a plastic and polyester button manufacturing facility with a capacity of 25,000 gross per month, which is also offered to other exporters as well.
