BKMEA signs MoU for Knit Villages

Dhaka: The trade body for knitwear sector, BKMEA, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with World Bank's arm IFC-BICF to get technical assistance for setting up 'knit villages' countrywide to manufacture high value added items.

Fazlul Hoque, president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and Martin Norman, programme manager, Economic Zones of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund, a World Bank Group, signed the agreement on the sideline of a roundtable discussion at Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka.

As per this technical assistance deal, the IFC-BICF will conduct a feasibility study for the project.

Hoque said his organisation is attaching importance to such knit villages because the trend now leans towards high-end products and the next business is a business of value addition.

'The setting up of the knit villages does not mean any relocation of the existing factories. In the proposed villages fresh entrepreneurs would have the opportunity to go into new ventures,' Hoque told the roundtable on 'Knit Village: Opportunity for growth and jobs'.

Hoque said in the next 15 years Bangladesh may be the top knitwear exporter as exports by two main competitors China and Turkey have been declining.

At the discussion, Commerce Secretary Feroz Ahmed pointed to the fact that the leather village was also scheduled to be relocated to Savar a few years earlier, but the industry is yet to be shifted from Hazaribagh.

He suggested that the manufacturers can utilise the plots of Ishurdi and Mongla Export Processing Zone (EPZ) as many plots still remain unutilised.

'But, we need to build up skilled manpower to reap knitwear business benefits,' Feroz Ahmed said.

Executive Director of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Mustafizur Rahman opined that the government could efficiently address the regional disparity by setting up knit villages in many locations rather than in a single place.