$50b RMG Export Target by 2021:

Investment in technology a must

By RMG Bangladesh Sep 8, 2016

Besides, infrastructure bottle necks and capacity constraints, which are the threat to prosperity,
needs to be removed to attract more investment in the industry, the life blood of the countrys
economy. The observations came after an intense brainstorming panel discussion at a seminar on
Bastra Shilper Adhunikayan (Modernisation of Apparel Industry) by ThreadSol, an innovative
apparel software solutions provider in partnership with Independent TV, a leading private
television channel, at the Radisson Blu Hotel in the city on Tuesday evening. The objective of
the seminar is to iron out a solution for making the dream of earning additional US$22 billion
from garment exports in next five years into a success. The panel is comprised of different
sectors, including high government and non-government officials, banks, RMG industry, think
tanks and IT officials. Senior Secretary to the Ministry of Commerce, Haydayetullah Al Mamun,
Siddiqur Rahman, president of BGMEA, Nazneen Ahmed, Senior Research Fellow, BIDS,
Showkat Aziz Russell, Chairman & Managing Director, Amber Denim and Mansij Ganguli, Cofounder & CEO ThreadSol were the discussants at the seminar. Mohammad Zahid Hossain,
special affairs editor of Independent TV, moderated the panel discussion. Speaking on the
occasion, the experts said globalisation is widely forcing textile producers to use technology that
improves productivity through process improvement, product innovation and new worker skills
and helps serve the customer more efficiently. Manasij Ganguli said intelloCut was developed to
give manufacturers the edge to reduce their material wastage by using effective concepts of

fabric utilisation and streamline cutting room processes while at the same time boosting profits
by up to 60%. Investment in equipment and new technology will enable output per worker to
increase and raise productivity and profitability, the panelist added that this will ultimately help
achieve the goal of earning $50bn in exports within the next five-year. The panelists were also of
the view that as the country has already enough manpower resource, technology is the only way
to reach the goal by minimising the production cost and maximising the profit. Use of
technology in Bangladesh garment industry is at a nascent stage, they pointed out and called for
a full-blown intervention of technology down to unit or operator level to increase efficiency from
production to distribution level. However, large scale manufacturers in the country are starting to
look at global technology for their business. The panel noted that the countrys many RMG
factories failed to reap the benefit of advanced technology because of the backdated technology
use.