Bangladesh is turning into a lucrative destination for manufacturing high-end formal suits as foreign investment proposals are coming to the sub-sector, with China losing its competitiveness, industry insiders said. The foreign brands are either sourcing the suits, formal jackets and trousers for men and women or establishing joint ventures in Bangladesh to tailor the suits.
The majority of the orders are being shifted from China, the world’s largest apparel supplier, as the Asian manufacturing giant loses its competitiveness for high cost of production and shortage of workers in the readymade garment sector.
Ananta Group, one of the local garment giants in Bangladesh, is constructing a factory at Adamjee Export Processing Zone exclusively for manufacturing suits in joint venture with a Romanian company.
The suits tailored from the factory will be supplied to the exclusive European customers, said Asif Zahir, a director of the group. The factory is scheduled to start operations in September.
“The suit is a relatively new product on our export list. But, recently, orders for suits are coming to Bangladesh. Bangladesh is able to manufacture suits for high-end customers,” he said.
He said it takes intense training to make the workers skilled for producing such specialised garment items for special markets. But such workers are not available in Bangladesh, Zahir said.
Zahir’s factory aims to produce 1.5 million suits a year in the partnership factory worth $20 million, he said.
A few days ago, a Japanese company willing to set up a suit factory came in Bangladesh, said a senior official of Japan External Trade Organisation (Jetro) in Dhaka requesting anonymity.
But the company now plans to outsource the suits from a local garment company for its high-end customers in Japan, as it failed to find any suitable land for its manufacturing unit, the Jetro official said.
The company wants to have an operation in Bangladesh, as its China operation has become expensive.
Currently, some factories make suits for domestic customers, although they have export potential, industry insiders said.
-With The Daily Star input
