The four-day 20th Textech Bangladesh International Expo kicked off on recently in the capital to showcase textile and apparel products of more than 1,300 manufacturers around the globe.
Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun inaugurated the expo at the capita’s Basahundhara Convention Centre.
“Bangladesh is one of the leaders in the world garment market and in order to retain that position we need to find new markets and diversify our products,” said the Minister while speaking as chief guest.
Manufacturers from around 25 countries including China, India, Germany, the UK, the US, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey, Italy and Sri Lanka are showcasing their products in the expo.
Different type of yarns, fabrics, computer jacquard elastic belt, buttons, trims, accessories, chemical, dyes, machinery including Bow machine and other related products and services are on display in the expo. Manufacturers and buyers said such initiative would help both the parties to cut cost, build contact and increase profit.
“We also participated last year and it was a huge success for us. We received orders for one million buttons last year. We are hoping that we will do better this year,” Lucky Li, representative of GX Button, told.
SKIES, a protective equipment manufacturer, General Manager Leo said, “This is the first time we came to an expo of such grand scale. We are running business with Bangladesh for the last three years and such initiative will give us opportunity for expansion.”
“This kind of expo helps us to cut off the middleman as we come directly in contact with the buyers, garments owners and other related business people. It helps us to reduce our cost and increase our sales,” Sheikh Tajuddin Chowdhury, Marketing Manager of Cherry Button Ltd, told. The Textile & Apparel Export Industry of Bangladesh now stands at $32 bn and is now aggressively focusing on increasing its Apparel exports to $50 bn by the year 2021.
The textile and apparel export industry have been a key part of the country’s economy over the past few decades. The current industry export value stand around $31 bn USD per year. It is projected that the annual RMG export value will reach about $50 bn by 2021.
With rapid advancement, the textile sector is now faced with a growing demand for chemicals. It is primarily estimated that local textile industries consume about 1.48 mn tonne of chemicals per year. It is speculated that about 70 percent of the chemical demand is met with imports.