Denim industry under threat on waste cotton exports
A man checks out denim products at an outlet in Dhaka. Facing a dearth of waste cotton, a byproduct of spinning mills, some denim and home textile yarn producers have already closed down their production units, industry people said.Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain
Local denim and home textile yarn industry is now under threat on exports of waste cotton.
Facing a dearth of waste cotton, a byproduct of spinning mills, some denim and home textile yarn producers have already closed down their production units, industry people said.
“I have already closed a rotor mill of denim yarn as I can hardly supply the raw materials on time,” said Nurul Islam, managing director of Nurul Islam Spinning Mills Limited, adding that many other factory owners may announce closure of their units or shift their production due to such scarcity of the raw materials.
Against this backdrop, the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) recently sent a letter to the commerce adviser requesting him for imposing restrictions on cotton waste export.
BTMA complained some businessmen are engaged in exporting cotton waste mixing with virgin cotton.
Meanwhile, some of the denim manufacturers pointed out that they are to import of such yarn.
Talking to The Daily Star, a major exporter of denim said the local spinning mills can only supply 20 percent of the total demand. These mills can supply at least 50 percent of the demand, but they either export those or they use those in their own denim production units.
If exports of waste cotton could be stopped, the import dependency could also be reduced to a large extent, the denim exporter said.
“We are losing our competitiveness to other countries following such a dearth of yarn in the local market,” he said, requesting anonymity.
In recent years Bangladesh's reputation as a significant supplier of denim and home textile products to the EU and US markets is waning because of the non-availability of raw materials like waste cotton from the spinning mills, denim manufacturers said.
BTMA data shows at present at least 5 organisations are engaged in exporting waste cotton.
It said the import value of one kg virgin cotton is US$1.76 and it requires 6.66 kgs of virgin cotton to have 1 kg of waste cotton. Price of 6.66 kg of virgin cotton is $11.72 and prices of 1 kg waste cotton is $1.76 and the recoverable value of 1 kg waste cotton is $1.66 per kg.
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