Textile and Apparel industry in Bangladesh

Textile and Apparel industry has been expanded over the last two decades and shows remarkable success in foreign earnings and employment. This plays an important role in upgrading the socio-economic condition of Bangladesh. This sector generates the employment of about 4 million people, especially the 2 million of disadvantaged women.

Today the Textile and Apparel sector is a multi-billion dollar manufacturing and export industry in the country, which strengthens the country’s economy. Currently, the Textile industry annually earns sum $ 28.6 billion which is about 81.5% of total export earnings of Bangladesh. The current sector growth rate is about 10%. The contribution of textile sector in our national economy of last ten years is mentioned in Table 1.

List of Textile and Apparel Industry in Bangladesh

Table 1: Contribution of Textile sector in Bangladesh

Year	Export of Textiles (In Million US$)	Total Export of Bangladesh (In Million US$)	% of Textiles to Total Export	% of Growth rate of Textiles
2006-07	9211.23	12177.86	75.64	16.59
2007-08	10699.8	14110.8	75.83	16.16
2008-09	12347.77	15565.19	79.33	15.40
2009-10	12496.72	16204.65	77.12	1.21
2010-11	17914.46	22924.38	78.15	43.35
2011-12	19089.73	24301.9	78.55	6.56
2012-13	21515.73	27027.36	79.61	12.71
2013-14	24491.88	30186.62	81.13	13.83
2014-15	25491.4	31208.94	81.68	4.08
2015-16	28094.16	34257.18	82.01	10.21

(Source: Export Promotion Bureau Compiled by BGMEA)

Table 2: Present Structure of Textile Industry in Bangladesh

Sl	Textile Sub-sector	No. of units
1	Spinning	424
2	Weaving/Fabric manufacturing	794
3	Dyeing-Printing-Finishing	241
4	Knit-composite	1700
5	Export Oriented Garments	4328

(Source: Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, BTMA & Bangladesh Knit Manufacturers and Exporters Association, BKMEA)

Table 2 shows the present structure of the backward linkage textile industry in Bangladesh. Government has targeted the $ 50 billion milestone export by 2021 maintaining a double fold growth. Thus, a huge amount of raw materials such as yarn, fabrics, and other necessary accessories for this Textile and Apparel industry need to be produced by our local spinning, weaving, knitting, and dyeing & finishing industries.

Fortunately, a big percentage of raw materials of the knit garment industry are manufactured and supplied by the local backward linkage textile industry. However, there is a big supply and demand gap between woven readymade garment (RMG) industry and manufacturing of woven fabrics and related accessories. Report says, the RMG (woven) sector of Bangladesh needs approximately 3 billion meters of woven fabric per year.

However, local woven textile industries can only produce around 45 million meters fabric which is around 15% of the total demand. The country is losing approximately $4 billion per year to import fabric (Source : Md. Meherul Islam, Woven fabric sector of Bangladesh- opportunities, challenges and techniques, Bangladesh Textile Today, February 2017) to fill up the current demand.

Hence, textile woven subsector as well as other value added diversified textiles can be expanded largely. The textile and apparel industry in Bangladesh is moving on although it has faced a crucial time due to the covid-19. Bangladesh Government along with the professional bodies like BGMEA, ITET, BKMEA, BJMC, etc. has taken the right measure to sustain the industry. The recent study on the situation before and after the covid-19 outbreak, revealed that Bangladesh textile and apparel industry regained the market quite successfully.

List of Textile and Apparel Industry in Bangladesh:

Note: Photo referenced from google.

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