Mostafiz Uddin

It seems that just as we recover from one crisis – the global pandemic – another one begins.

RMG makers in Bangladesh have a compelling story to tell. And there is no better time to start doing it than now.

In the fashion industry, public relations is a business-critical discipline.

Enhancing production capacity now, without any feasibility studies or without regard to what future headwind we may be facing, would be risky and reckless.

Despite Bangladesh having a large number of green factories, the SMEs in our garment industry are still struggling to access green finance.

Garment makers, governments, NGOs and fashion retailers all agree on one thing: carbon emissions in the clothing production must be reduced. Our industry is one of the world’s most emissions-intensive, and it is simply not sustainable in its current format.

Two years ago, garment order books were empty as Covid broke out and shut down the main global markets for Bangladesh.

Everywhere I go I hear the same maxim: sustainability is the only word forward for the fashion industry.

We’ve spent so many years going round in circles on various issues impacting garment supply chains.

While Covid-19 has sent shock waves through the ready-made garment (RMG) supply chains that continue to reverberate, there is also a broader issue that needs more attention: sustainability.

“Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.” This quote is from Sir Richard Branson,

Sustainability should not be a hard sell. And yet, in our industry, so many garment makers continue to look at it as a financial burden—a potential drain for their businesses.

A host of challenges await garment makers as 2022 progresses.

New developments in technology, robotics, automation and digitisation are something all garment manufacturers need to be mindful of. Knowledge, as they say, is power.

We recently saw the announcement of new supply chain “due diligence” laws by the European Union (EU), which are aimed at making multinational businesses accountable for social and environmental transgressions in supply chains.

Our RMG industry has been characterised by the phrase “feast or famine” these last two years. After Covid-19 broke out in early 2020, clothing orders were extremely hard to come by for a period of time.

“UK retailers ditch unethical suppliers,” cried a recent headline in several international news outlets. Did I read that correctly?

Recently, I read that Pakistan, a major competitor of Bangladesh in garment and textile production, had hit record textile exports. The country posted an uptick in textile exports year-on-year of 40 percent in FY2021-22 to the level of USD 21 billion.

The future looks bright for Bangladesh’s RMG sector after a period of profound uncertainty due to the global pandemic. The latest apparel export figures show that, despite the coronavirus pandemic and global lockdowns in key markets, Bangladesh set a new record for apparel exports in the 2021 calendar year.

In Bangladesh’s RMG industry, we view ourselves as fighting for a position as the world’s second-most important garment sourcing hub.