Dhaka’s garment factories to be moved
Reuters
Gulf News, United Arab Emirates
Dhaka: Bangladesh’s army-backed interim government agreed yesterday with textile industry leaders to relocate garment factories away from the capital Dhaka, under a plan partly funded by the World Bank, officials said.
An agreement to this effect was signed between Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation, a body of the industries ministry, and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
BGMEA officials told reporters the move would involve spending 3.1 billion taka ($45 million), of which the World Bank would provide 60 per cent and the rest will be borne by the Bangladesh government.
They said the move was welcomed by businessmen as it would keep the factories away from political strife and shutdowns.
Clothing is Bangladesh’s biggest export, which earned the country nearly $8 billion in the year to June 2014. Experts said the export earnings from this sector would double to around $15 billion by 2014.
Environmentalists said the shift would also help reduce overcrowding and pollution in the capital, home to more than 10 million people. A quarter of the city’s people, including garment workers, live in slums rife with crime.
Under the plan, a new textile park will be built on a 300-acre government land at Baushia, 40 kilometres northeast of the capital, beside the highway that links Dhaka to the Chitta-gong port. The park will be completed in five years, but some 1,000 out of 3,000 factories now located in and around the capital will be shifted there in three years, for the first phase.
The garment industry is Bangladesh’s second big-gest employer – after agriculture, employing about 2.2 million workers.
Prime mover
The prime mover of the plan was the government’s Department of Environment (DOE), which insists the factories operating in the city, especially in residential areas, must shift within three years.
After some deadly accidents in garment factories in Dhaka and surrounding areas in 2004 and 2005, and consequent pressures from rights groups and overseas buyers, the government in December 2005 ventured the idea of a garment industry park. But its implementation was delayed, frustrating the clothing makers and exporters.
Fazlul Hoque, president of the Bangladesh Knit-wear Manufactures and Exporters Association, said the country’s textile industry would be better off with a relocation of factories, which are now scattered and deprived of full government support.
“This is a very positive initiative. If we can do it successfully it will have a multiple effect… all the services like bank, gas, power and water will be available from a single window,” he said.
