Search new markets, diversify products: PM to RMG businessmen

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday urged readymade garment businessmen to look for new markets and diversify their products.

“It will be my request that you find new markets and produce new garment items,” she said while inaugurating the newly-constructed BGMEA complex in Uttara.

Hasina opened the 13-storey Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) headquarters via videoconferencing from Ganobhaban.

It was constructed after the top court ordered dismantling the BGMEA Bhaban at Kawran Bazar.

Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of RMG products after China. A big part of the country’s export earnings come from this sector.

Hasina said the RMG industry will have to produce products considering the requirements of buyers of different countries.

She said heads of Bangladesh Missions have been directed to find new markets for Bangladeshi products.

The prime minister noted that the RMG industry employs a huge number of female workers, which contributes to the socio-economic uplifting of the grassroots people.

“Female workers are earning money and sending back to their village homes, strengthening the rural economy,” she said.

Describing various measures taken for the RMG workers, the prime minister said the minimum wage was raised to TK 8,000 from Tk 1,600 in last ten years.

About demolishing the BGMEA Bhaban, she said she had laid the building’s foundation stone during her 1996-2001 term near Sonargaon Hotel but it was later constructed at Hatirjheel.

Hasina said her government allotted a large plot to BGMEA at Uttara for the greater interest of the RMG sector.

PM’s Private Industry and Investment Adviser Salman F Rahman, former BGEMA presidents Atikul Islam, Abdus Salam Murshedy MP and Anwarul Islam Chowdhury Parvej were present at Ganobhaban, while PMO Secretary Sajjadul Hassan moderated the videoconferencing.

BGMEA President Siddiqur Rahman and other leaders joined the videoconferencing and spoke from the newly-constructed BGMEA Complex.

Source: unb