The Local Textile Industry of Bangladesh: A Signature of Our Culture
Clothing is one of the basic needs of human life for survival that comes after food but it is more than an essential requirement as it represents the uniqueness
and identity of a nation. We have represented our heritage in the global stage through Jamdani and Moslin. With passage of time, our concentration moved
towards the RMG and we, through leveraging our competitive advantage of low cost production, have secured the third position in the world.
Although it is very common to associate the RMG sector with local textile industry, RMG is different from local textile. RMG sector is engaged in manufacturing
export oriented products while the local textile holds the aim to serve the native demand.
The local textile has to go through five distinctive steps to produce the finished goods. The process starts from import of cotton, and then we move to spinning which means the production of yarn. After producing yarn we move to the next step and it is weaving where grey fabrics are produced. Then we move to the fourth step where grey fabrics move into dyeing and printing factories and finally, we step into the final stair and it is the finished goods.
The size of local textile industry is immense and its market size is of USD 7 billion dollar. Although there is a trend of duplicating the design of neighboring
countries but our local brands, for example: Yellow, Sailor, Aarong, etc. are promising and we hope that in the near future we will cater our domestic market with own distinctiveness.
Nothing is beyond challenges and limitations, and our local textile industry also has certain challenges which range from scarcity of investment to reform of existing policies. Yet, we can see a prospective future of this sector, and proper nurture of this segment will let us set our footprint in abroad as well, after fulfilling the domestic demand.
RIFAT ISHTIAQ KHAN
Manager
IDLC Finance Ltd.