Bangladesh : Knitwear exports leap forward by 2.4%

Over the last few years, Bangladesh knitwear sector has seen a phenomenal growth. The unified growth of spinning factories in the region has made this possible.
The exports of knitwear, in the first five months of present financial, which runs through July to June (2007-08), saw a boost of 2.4 percent reaching US $5.166 billion compared to $5.045 billion of the similar period of last year.
In this period from June to November, knitwear exports rose by 6.19 percent, earning $2.03 billion, where as in the earlier year, same period, the country had fetched just $1.915 billion.
“The knitwear is one of the fast growing industries of Bangladesh, as fabric for knitwear spinning is easily available in the market and investment required to produce this particular material is quite small compared to other sectors,” told Mr Farhad Hussain, Senior Executive, BGMEA, to Fibre2fashion while discussing rosy picture of the knitwear sector.
The BGMEA executive also said that although, the country mainly targets to meet the US demands, however, has explored newer markets like Russia, Korea and Northern America for exports during this period.
Talking about the workers front, Mr Hussain said, “Labour, in the country used to be underpaid. The garment sector engages the highest number of women labourers and most of them were unskilled. However, presently, the Government, in order to diminish the woes of this working class, has hiked wages. This in turn proved fruitful for the industry.”