Luck smiling on the RMG sector!

GIVING a lie to post-MFA doomsday prophesies for Bangladesh garment sector stuttering on being thrown out of sheltered market of quotas, our RMG products have come to enjoy a high demand profile. Thanks to China's currency appreciating against dollar and her cost of doing business rising due to increase in workers' wages, Chinese apparels' competitive edge over Bangladesh has eroded giving our products a bigger market share. Compared to the high prices of apparels made in China, the Bangladeshi good quality readymade garments selling at bargain prices are widely sought after.
The new-found buoyancy of the garment sector is reflected on two levels: first, the foreign buying houses, including the prestigious Adidas and Tesco are showing an increasing interest in opening liaison offices in Bangladesh. They are already 60 percent of the 200 buying houses that have sprung up in 2008 from 150 last year. Forty percent are local buying houses. How graphic is the rise in the number is proven by the fact that every month six new buying houses are added to the market.
The buying houses are like emporia on which leading manufacturers, exporters and suppliers display their trendiest collections to a huge audience round the year. Their work can be largely complemented by garments fairs staged abroad in suitable locations. The thriving business can be even furthered if we train up merchandisers for employment in both foreign and local buying houses. In a context where Russia and Uzbekistan are becoming newer destinations for Bangladeshi apparels. With the former even evincing interest in hiring skilled textile workers from Bangladesh, we have to have a suitable combined strategy encompassing both export of apparels as well as that of textile-related expertise and manpower. The success should also lead us into thinking out of the box in so far as according greater recognition and value to our garment workers, an overwhelming majority of whom are women.
For their part, the foreign buyers would help the sector even more if they pay higher prices for our products.