summary of Bangladesh Garment industry
Agriculture, as the case in India, has been the backbone of cheaper and chief source of earnings for the people of Bangladesh, the country made of villages. Government wants to decrease poverty by getting top productivity from agriculture and perform self-reliance in food production. Apart from agriculture, the country is much concerned about the growth of export division. Bangladesh have accelerated and changed her exports substantially from time to time. After Bangladesh came into being, jute and tea were the most export-oriented industries. But with the continual perils of flood, failing jute fibre prices and a needful decline in world demand, the role of the jute sector to the country's cheaper has deteriorated (Spinanger, 1986). After that, focus has been shifted to the function of output sector, especially in garment industry.
The garment industry of Bangladesh has been the key export branch and a main source of foreign transfer for the last 25 years. At present, the country generates about billion worth of products each year by exporting garment. The industry provides employment to about 3 million workers of whom 90% are women. Two non-market elements have performed a vital function in confirming the garment industry's continual success; these elements are (a) quotas under Multi- Fibre Arrangement1 (Mfa) in the North American market and (b) special market entry to European markets. The whole policy is strongly linked with the trend of relocation of production.
Hosting Choose Rent
Displacement of output in the Garment Industry
The global cheaper is now controlled by the transfer of output where firms of advanced countries swing their concentration to developing countries. The new representation is centred on a core-periphery system of production, with a comparatively small centre of permanent employees dealing with finance, research and development, technological custom and modernisation and a periphery containing dependent elements of output procedure. Reducing costs and increasing output are the main causes for this disposition. They have discovered that the simplest way to undercharge is to move output to a country where labour charge and output costs are lower. Since developing nations contribute areas that do not inflict costs like environmental degeneration, this custom protects the advanced countries against the issues of environment and law. The transfer of output to Third World has helped the expansion of cheaper of these nations and also speed up the cheaper of the advanced nations.
Garment industry is controlled by the transfer of production. The globalisation of garment output started earlier and has expanded more than that of any other factory. The associates have transferred their blue-collar output activities from high-wage areas to low-cost manufacturing regions in industrialising countries. The enhancement of communication system and networking has played a key role in this development. Export-oriented manufacturing has brought some good returns to the industrialising nations of Asia and Latin America since the 1960s. The first relocation of garment manufacturing took place from North America and Western Europe to Japan in the 1950s and the early 1960s. But during 1965 and 1983, Japan changed its concentration to more lucrative products like cars, stereos and computers and therefore, 400,000 workers were dismissed by Japanese textile and clothing industry. In impact, the second stock transfer of garment manufacturing was from Japan to the Asian Tigers - South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in 1970s. But the tendency of transfer of manufacturing did not remain there. The rise in labour charge and activeness of trade unions were in proportion to the enhancement in economies of the Asian Tigers. The industry witnessed a third transfer of manufacturing from 1980s to 1990s; from the Asian Tigers to other developing countries - Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China in particular. The 1990s have been led by the final group of exporters along with Bangladesh, Srilanka, Pakistan and Vietnam. But China was leader in the current of the relocation as in less than ten years (after 1980s) China emerged from nowhere to become the world's major manufacturer and exporter of clothing.
Bangladesh Garment Sector and Global Chain
The cause of this transfer can be clarified by the wages structure in the garment industry, all over the world. Apparel labour charge per hour (wages and fringe benefits, Us$) in Usa is 10.12 but it is only 0.30 in Bangladesh. This difference accelerated the world apparel exports from billion in 1965, with developing nations development up just 14 percent of the total, to 9 billion in 1991, with developing nations contributing 59 percent. In 1991 the whole of workers in the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh was 582,000 and it grew up to 1,404,000 in 1998. In Usa, however, 1991-figure showed 1,106.0 thousand workers in the apparel sector and in 1998 it turned down to 765. 8 thousand.
The presented information reveals that the tendency of low labour charges is the key calculate for the transfer of garment manufacturing in Bangladesh. The custom initiated in late 1970s when the Asian Tiger nations were in quest of tactics to avoid the export quotas of Western countries. The garment units of Bangladesh are mainly relying on the 'tiger' nations for raw materials. Mediators in Asian Tiger nations build an intermediary between the textile units in their home countries, where the spinning and weaving go on, and the Bangladeshi units where the cloth is cut, sewn, ironed and packed into cartons for export. The same representatives of tiger nations recognize the market for Bangladesh in several nations of the North. Large retail trading associates settled in the United States and Western Europe give most orders for Bangladeshi garment products. associates like Marks and Spencers (Uk) and C&A (the Netherlands) operate capital funds, in proportion to which the capital of Bangladeshi owners is patience. Shirts man-made in Bangladesh are sold in advanced nations for five to ten times their imported price.
Collaboration of a native underground garment industry, Desh Company, with a Korean company, Daewoo is an foremost instance of international garment chain that works as one of the grounds of the expansion of garment industry in Bangladesh. Daewoo Corporation of South Korea, as part of its global policies, took interest in Bangladesh when the Chairman, Kim Woo-Choong, offered an aspiring joint venture to the Government of Bangladesh, which included the growth and process of tyre, leather goods, and cement and garment factories. The Desh-Daewoo alliance was decisive in terms of getting into the global apparel markets at needful juncture, when import reforming was going on in this market following the signing of Mfa in 1974. Daewoo, a South Korean foremost exporter of garments, was in crusade of opportunities in nations, which had hardly used their quotas. Due to the quota restriction for Korea after Mfa, the export of Daewoo became limited. Bangladesh as an Ldc got the chance to export without any constraint and for this cause Daewoo was concerned with the use of Bangladesh for their market. The purpose behind this need was that Bangladesh would rely on Daewoo for importing raw materials and at the same time Daewoo would get the market in Bangladesh. When the Chairman of Daewoo displayed interest in Bangladesh, the country's President put him in touch with chairman of Desh Company, an ex-civil slave who was seeking more entrepreneurial pursuits.
To fulfil this wish, Daewoo signed a collaboration compact with Desh Garment for five years. The compact also incorporated the fields of technical training, purchase of machinery and fabric, plant making ready and marketing in return for a specific marketing commission on all exports by Desh during the compact phase. Daewoo also imparted an exhaustive practical training of Desh employees in the working atmosphere of a multinational company. Daewoo keenly helped Desh in buying machinery and fabrics. Some technicians of Daewoo arrived Bangladesh to build the plant for Desh. The end ensue of the relationship of Desh-Daewoo was important. In the first six years of its business, i.e. 1980/81-86/87, Desh export value increased at an each year average rate of 90%, reaching more than million in 1986/87.
It is claimed that the Desh-Daewoo alliance is a needful element for the growth and achievement of Bangladesh's entire garment export industry. After getting linked with Daewoo's brand names and marketing network, overseas buyers went on with buying garments from the corporation heedless of their origin. Out of the chance trainees most left Desh company at several times to erect their own competing garment companies, worked as a way of thoughprovoking knowledge all straight through the whole garment sector.
It is needful to identify the outcomes of the process of thoughprovoking output from high pay to low pay nations for both developing and advanced nations. It is a bare fact that most of the Third World nations are now on the way to industrialisation. In this procedure, workers are working under unfavourable working environment - minimal wages, unhealthy place of work, lack of security, no job guarantee, forced labour etc.
The route of globalisation is full of ups and downs for the developing nations. Relocations of comparatively mobile, blue-collar output from advanced to developing nations, in some circumstances, can have troublesome effects on collective life if - in the absence of productive planning and talks between international organisations and the government and/or organisations of the host nation - the transferred operation encourages urban-bound relocation and its span of stay is short. an additional one negative ensue is that the rise in employment and/or earnings is not staggering to be satisfactorily large and allinclusive to lessen inequality. In relationship with the negative results of relocation of manufacturing on employment in advanced countries, we realize that in comparatively blue-collar industries, the growing imports from developing nations lead to inevitable losses in employment. It is held that amelioration of trade with the South was a needful calculate of the disindustrialisation of employment in the North over past few decades.
After all employees who are enduringly working under unfavourable circumstances have to bear the brunt. Work is under-control across the Bangladesh garment sector. Appalling working atmosphere has been brought to light in the Bangladesh garment industry.
A research reveals that 90 percent of the garment employees went straight through illness or disease during the month before the interviews. Headache, anaemia, fever, chest, stomach, eye and ear pain, cough and cold, diarrhoea, dysentery, urinary tract infection and reproductive health problems were more coarse diseases. The garment factories gave bonus of separate diseases to the employees for working. With a view to seeing out a link between these diseases and market threats, health status of employees has been examined before and after advent in the garment work. At the end of examination, it was come out that about 75 percent of the garment workforce had sound health before they entered the garment factory. The reasons of health declines were market threats, unfavourable working environment, and want of staff facilities, inflexible terms and conditions of garment employment, workplace pressure, and low wages. separate work-related threats and their affect on health forced employees to leave the job after few months of joining the factory; the average length of assistance was only 4 years.
The garment sector is disreputable for fires, which are said to have claimed over 200 lives in the past two years, though exact figures are tough to find. A shocking instance of absence of workplace security was the fire in November 2000, in which roughly 50 workers lost their lives in Narsingdi as exist doors were closed.
From the above determination of working atmosphere of garment sector, we can state that the working environment of most of the Third World nations, particularly Bangladesh remind us of earlier amelioration of garment industries in the First World nations. The state of employment in many (not necessarily) textiles and clothing units in the developing nations take us back to those set up in the nineteenth century in Europe and North America. The mistreatment of garment employees in the birth period of the amelioration of Us garment factories reviewed above is more or less same as it seen now in the Bangladesh garment industry. Can we state that garment employees of the Third World nations living in the 21st century? Is it a return of the Sweatshop?
In a way, the Western associates are guilty of pitiable working atmosphere in the garment sector. The advanced nations want to make more profit and therefore, force the developing nations to cut down the manufacturing cost. In order to survive in the competition, most of the developing nations agree immoral practices. By introducing inflexible terms and conditions in the business, the global cheaper has left few alternatives for the developing nations.
Right Time to Make a Decision
There are two alternatives to tackle the challenge of the competing world initiated by the continuous pressure of global garment chain. One can continue to exist in the competition by adopting time-honoured work systems or immoral practices. But it is uncertain how long they can continue to exist. In relationship with the garment industry of Bangladesh, we can say that this is the right time to ensue a competing policy, which improves quality. If the Mfa opportunities are eliminated, will it be feasible to keep the competitiveness straight through low-wage-female labour or straight through supplementary drop in female wages? perhaps not. Since the labour charges are so minimal that with such wage, a employee is not able to articulate even a family of two members. Enhancing the efficiency of female workers is the only solution to increased competition. Proper instruction and suitable training can help perform these inevitable results. To rule the global market, Bangladesh has to come out of low wage and low output complex in the garment industry. Bangladesh can improve labour output straight through constant training, use of upgraded technology and good working environment. Bangladesh should plan a strategy intended for promoting skill development, speeding up technology transfer and Enhancing productivity height of the workers.
Another method is to adopt best system or ethical course. Those companies, which react to heightened competition by stressing quality, speedy rejoinder of the customers, fair practices for labourers should have the most innovative practices. We think that we are now living in the age of competition in producing improved ability over cost-reduction policy. The objective of convert efforts at the workplace has been modified over the time - from development the job humane in the 1960s, to job pleasure and output in 1970s, to ability and competitiveness in the 1980s. It is needful for a company to pursue a competing policy that improves quality, flexibility, innovation and buyer care. If they rely on low costs by dropping labourers' wages and other services, they will be bereaved of labourers' dedication to work.
Strength
. needful Qualified/keen to learn workforce available at low labour charges. The recommended minimum average wages (which include Travelling Allowance, House Rent, curative Allowance, Maternity Benefit, Festival Bonus and Overtime Benefit) in the units within the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones (Bepz) are given as below; on the other hand, face the Bepz the wages are about 40% lower:
. Power at low price
. undoubtedly accessible infrastructure like sea road, railroad, river and air communication
. Accessibility of basal infrastructure, which is about 3 decade old, mainly established by the Korean, Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese industrialists.
. Fdi is legally permitted
. Gently open Economy, particularly in the Export Promotion Zones
. Gsp under Eba (Everything But Arms) for Least advanced Country applicable (Duty free to Eu)
. Improved Gsp advantages under Regional Cumulative
. seeing send to Duty Free Excess to Us, talks are on, and appear to be on hopeful track
. venture assured under Foreign underground venture (Promotion and Protection) Act, 1980 which secures all foreign investments in Bangladesh
. Opic's (Overseas underground venture Corporation, Usa) guarnatee and finance agendas operable
. Bangladesh is a member of Multilateral venture guarantee branch (Miga) under which security and security measures are available
. Adjudication assistance of the International Centre for the hamlet of venture Dispute (Icsid) offered
. Exquisite Tele-communications network of E-mail, Internet, Fax, Isd, Nwd & Cellular services
. Infirmity of currency against dollar and the health will persist to help exporters
. Bank interest@ 7% for financing exports
. Convenience of duty free custom bonded w/house
. Readiness of new units to improve systems and generate infrastructure accordant with stock growth and fast reactions to circumstances
Weakness
. Lack of marketing tactics
. The country is deficient in creativity
. Absence of undoubtedly on-hand middle management
. A small whole of manufacturing methods
. Low acquiescence: there is an international pressure group to vigor the local producers and the government to implement collective acquiescence. The Us Gsp may be cancelled and purchasing from Us & Eu may decrease significantly
. M/c advancement is necessary. The machinery required to compare add on a garment or growth competence are missing in most industries.
. Lack of training organizations for market workers, supervisors and managers.
. Autocratic arrival of nearly all the investors
. Fewer process units for textiles and garments
. Sluggish backward or send blending procedure
. Incompetent ports, entry/exit complex and loading/unloading takes much time
. Speed money culture
. Time-consuming custom clearance
. Unreliable dependability with regard to Delivery/Qa/Product knowledge
. communication gap created by incomplete knowledge of English
. Field to natural calamities
Opportunity
. Eu is willing to build industry in a big way as an choice to china particularly for knits, along with sweaters
. Bangladesh is included in the Least advanced Countries with which Us is committed to improve export trade
. Sweaters are very prudent even with china and is the anticipation for Bangladesh
. If skilled technicians are available to instruct, prearranged garment is an choice because labour and Power cost are inexpensive.
. Foundation garments for Ladies for the Fdi promise is needful because both, the technicians and extremely advanced machinery are needful for good competence and output
. Japan to be observed, as conventionally they purchase handloom textiles, home furniture and garments. This section can be encouraged and expanded with prolonged progress in quality
Threat
. The exporters have to prepare themselves to harvest the advantages offered by the opportunities.
summary of Bangladesh Garment industry
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