The future of Bangladesh's garment sector is bright as the number of factories has gone up over the years and almost all of them are accredited and audited now, said a garment buying consultant from the Netherlands.

“This is a big achievement for the country,” said Dhyana van der Pols, owner of Nash International, which advises 200 European garment retailers who source $200 million worth of apparel items from Bangladesh a year.

So far, none of the other garment producing countries have been inspected by a third party agency. No other nation has voluntarily audited their factories, she said.

As a result, retailers all over the world now consider Bangladesh to be one of the compliant nations, said van der Pols, who recently visited Dhaka to attend a seminar on sustainable sourcing of garment items. The Daily Star caught up with her on the sidelines of the seminar.

Previously, the European and American buyers thought of China a one-stop shopping mall. But now, they have started viewing Bangladesh in the same light, as all their sourcing demand can be met here, she said.

“It is not true that Bangladesh produces only the low-cost T-shirts and that it is a bottom-feeder. Bangladesh produces a lot of diversified products.”

The retailers are also shifting orders to Bangladesh from China, which has lost its comparative advantage due to higher costs of production and shortage of skilled workforce.

The experienced garment buyer went on to recommend Bangladesh to work on formalwear, swimwear and outdoor clothing as well as these items have high demand in the international market.

About the transformation of the garment sector following the Rana Plaza collapse in April 2013, van der Pols said: “The changes are a miracle. The industry people have done everything for changing the industry.”

Bangladesh has facilitated everything for restructuring of the garment sector, she said, adding that she herself spread the word on the sector's positive transformation.

“I went to different television shows in the Netherlands and spoke a lot on the progresses Bangladesh made after the Rana Plaza building collapse.”

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, the brands and the Western consumers have also realised the progresses that Bangladesh made is a miracle, according to van der Pols.

Regarding fair wages, fair prices and fair business conduct, she said these are ethical issues that need everybody's cooperation.

In Bangladesh, the manufacturers are in fierce competition for getting more work orders from international retailers. “The internal competition is a problem for not getting fair prices from buyers.”

Going forward, one of the big challenges for the sector is scaling up production to meet the higher volumes of work orders that would be diverted from China.

Regarding some emerging garment manufacturing countries like Ethiopia and Myanmar, she said at present Ethiopia is exporting $100 million worth of garment, which is “very small”.

Some international retailers and garment makers are trying to set up factories in Ethiopia but that will take time. “So, Bangladesh is in the international retailers' map now and in the future.”

She said Bangladesh has an edge over upstarts because of skilled workforce. “This is the biggest achievement of Bangladesh.” At present, Bangladeshi products get duty-free access to the European Union. But the facility would come to an end in 2021, when the country would graduate to the middle-income bracket.

However, the EU will allow duty-free access to Bangladeshi products under the 'GSP Plus' scheme, but for that the country will have to comply with international standards for human rights, cut down corruption and improve its green credentials.

“If Bangladesh loses the GSP Plus, business would totally disappear,” she said, citing the case of Sri Lanka, which lost its GSP Plus status 15-20 years ago and with it its garment trade. In case of Bangladesh, the GSP Plus status should be continued until 2025 or 2028 as by this time the industry would be mature enough, van der Pols said.

At present, the EU, the US and Canada are Bangladesh's main markets.

But van der Pols advised Bangladesh to explore the Asian markets as well -- particularly Japan, China and India -- where the per capita consumption of clothing is rising due to the burgeoning middle-class.

The size of India's apparel market is $59 billion a year and it is expected to grow to a $120 billion-industry by 2030.  China's domestic market size is $270 billion a year, which will soar to $600 billion by 2025.

“So, Bangladesh has a very good opportunity in regional garment business as well.”

Source: The Daily Star