Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Associations (BGMEA) one of the largest trade associations in the country, representing the readymade garment industry expressed concern over the drop in productivities due to various reason as a result in past three years 618 factories shut down.

President Siddiqur Rahman yesterday said that Bangladeshs garment industry was facing myriad challenges of gas and power crisis, high interest rate of bank loans, devaluation of US dollars and cut in price of its product.

Bangladesh, the world’s second largest exporter of apparels of western brands, will close 319 more garment factories amidst intense global competition and challenges faced by the industry.

Noting that the export had been growing by an average of 10 percent over past five years, Rahman demanded halving the tax at source for the sector to 0.3 percent in 2016-17 like the previous fiscal year.

He also suggested that no value added tax should be imposed on garment accessories, and duty-free import of fire extinguishers should be allowed to help the entrepreneurs tackle the challenges.

They need 12 percent annual growth in order to reach the export target of USD 50 billion by 2021. But the growth was only 6.81 percent over past 22 months. So they are 3.19 percentage points behind from the expected average growth and 5.19 percentage points behind from the expected growth for the 2021 target.

In 2012 the textile industry accounted for 45 percent of all industrial employment in the country yet only contributed 5 percent of the Bangladeshs total national income.

Bangladesh is second only to China in apparel exporter of western brands. Sixty percent of the export contracts of western brands are with European buyers and about forty percent with American buyers.