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Separate ministry for apparel industry

24 March 2006, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Shatfuddin Ahmed Sharif Chairman Standing Committee on UD & Small and Medium Entrepreneurs
24 March 2006, 18:00 PM
We know there was an election pledged by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the last election campaign that if they came to power, they would open a new ministry for the garments sector. The BNP government has claimed that they have ful-filled all the election pledges. But we do not find a separate ministry for apparel sector. It is evident that this industry earns 76 percent of the foreign currency and employs highest number of workers specially the marginal class of women-folk estimated at more than two million. The industry expanded in such a way from its unplanned infrastructure that it accumulated so many problems now to be solved by the government not possible by the association and factory units only.

The stakeholders in this field of business usually blame that the present government is always reluctant to do something for the betterment of this sector. They have denied the demands of CBW, Garment-Pally, etc, Export Performance benefit and have not given technical and financial support for duty free access to USA. Sometimes it appears that the higher authority in the government had shown interest to solve the problems of sick industry and provide CBW facilities but it did not take shape due to different ministerial abstruse arguments.

We do not understand why the government is not showing enough interest to boost this sector for earning huge amount of foreign currency. However, the acting president of BGMEA has rightly and in right time given the arguments for a separate ministry for apparel industry. May I have the opportunity to draw the attention of the government to this demand.

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