Dyeing mills time for life
The local dyeing industry has begun recovering slowly from losses as garment work orders began to pick up because of the reopening of shops in the West.
Most dyeing factories, which mainly process woven, yarn and knit garment items, remained shut for about 8 weeks until May 30, when the federal government announced a countrywide closure to curb the spread of Covid-19.
The sector's recovery started when apparel producers started positioning work orders for processed fabrics in June.
Many mils had to close their doors or continue businesses on a restricted scale, said Abul Kalam Azad, director of Labib Group, a respected exporter of sweater products.
"Now they have began to process yarn for sweaters and other warm clothing items before winter."
Bangladesh ships 0.85 billion pieces of sweaters worth $4.25 billion every year and along the way consumes 700 million pounds of yarn, around 30 % of which originates from local millers and the rest mainly from China.
Despite signs of recovery in the yarn processing business, the sector will lose at least 25 % of its exports as a result of epidemic, he added.
Khaled Hossain Mahbub, managing director of the Mega Yarn Dyeing mill located in Savar, echoed the sentiment.
Mahbub's company used to process 40 tonnes of yarn at his $30 million factory every day prior to the emergence of the coronavirus.
And today he hopes to come back to its full production capacity soon as local garment makers attended back to the scene with new work orders.
It requires a whole lot of investment to create an industry-standard dyeing mill, he said, adding that the pandemic has afflicted overall investment in the sector.
Shibbir Ahmed, secretary to the Bangladesh Dyed Yarn Exporters Association, also said the dyeing industry is returning to its previous position due to the inflow of work orders.
The dyeing industry has become strong over the years as a significant supplier to the neighborhood knitwear industry.
For example, local dyers can meet 90 % of the knitwear industry's demand for yarn, as only the yarn dyeing industry has a total investment of over Tk 50,000 crore, he said.
The daily sales are adequate now and the industry players be prepared to see more investment in the sector in the post-pandemic period, Ahmed said.
Meanwhile, Monsoor Ahmed, secretary to the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, said recovery in addition has started for woven dyeing industries as garment exports began to grow following a short time of decline.
Currently, more than 250 woven dyeing mills can process export-oriented fabrics.
More investment in the woven dying sector will need place in the post-pandemic period as some big plants are waiting for normalcy to be restored, Ahmed said.
A huge investment, varying between Tk 50 crore to Tk 500 crore, is required to create a dyeing mill, he added. Signs of recovery in the garment sector all together was noticed in the export figures for July.
That month, Bangladesh earned about $3.24 billion from garment shipments, which is 1.98 lower from the sector's earnings for the same period the year before.
However, the earnings from garment exports in July were 14.18 percent greater than the monthly target of $2.84 billion.
Of the full total earnings from garment shipments, knitwear grew by 4.30 % year-on-year to $1.75 billion while woven exports fell by 8.43 % year-on-year to $1.49 billion, according to data from the Export Promotion Bureau released earlier this week.
Export earnings from the sector was $0.37 billion in April, $1.23 billion in-may and $2.28 billion in June, the info shows.
Personal Protective Equipment, such as for example masks and other insulation fabrics, have become new export items for Bangladesh as a great number of international buyers are placing work orders for all those products amid the ongoing pandemic.
Although the demand for branded apparel items has decline, the demand for basic ones remain the same therefore, basic garment items are rescuing Bangladesh's export revenue, according to various exporters.
