Bangladesh Talks Denim in 2019 and Beyond
Bangladesh continues to make a name for itself in denim. And 2019 may see the country advance itself even further.
Bangladesh has been grooming itself for its role as a leading denim manufacturer, with innovations and investments in greener technologies and processes, and the country is ready to go toe-to-toe with the global competition.
In a denim roundtable of sorts, Carved in Blue gets the scoop on what’s happening in Bangladesh’s blue sector.
Hear from Nauman Hakim, Senior GM, head of product development and R&D at Beximco Textiles Ltd., Jamal Abdun Naser, director of operations at Shasha Denims Ltd., Shariful Kabir, general manager for marketing at Envoy Textiles Ltd., and Monjur Hasan, assistant general manager for international business at Ha-meem Denim Ltd.
Carved in Blue: How has your business fared in light of the tariffs between the U.S. and China? Have more companies been turning to Bangladesh?
Nauman Hakim: The U.S. –China trade war and higher tariff on Chinese apparel items is creating good opportunities, leading retailers and brands from USA and China to us. Overall, business is growing. There are a lot of Chinese retailers and companies looking in Bangladesh to produce goods for their ongoing business since production cost in China increased due to higher tariff and a shortage of skilled workers. Owners of Chinese sunset industries are looking at us as a destination for production facilities. The country is expected to receive lot of investment.
Bangladesh is the world biggest importer of cotton and second largest exporter of ready-made garments after China. Bangladesh imports cotton roughly about $284 million from USA. If price is reduced by 10 percent, the impact on business will be significant.
Jamal Abdun Naser: This has been seen that U.S. brands are giving more queries than earlier years. Like Gap, American Eagle, Kohl’s, etc., are giving more queries than before.
Shariful Kabir: Apparel business started shifting from China well before, and the new US-China trade war is expected to pick the pace up. Many companies from China are planning to shift/expand their operations to Bangladesh, but I’m not sure whether it is resulting more from the business shifting situation from China or from the recent U.S.-China trade war. The coming years will provide more visibility on it.
Monjur Hasan: Yes, buyers concept for Bangladesh is positive. Bangladesh is ensuring the quality as well as speed delivery lead time. Secondly, the R&D is becoming strong now.
Carved in Blue: What’s the appeal for companies now when it comes to denim from Bangladesh?
Nauman: The retailers are getting better quality and competitive price range. More than 66 international brands, including Charles Voegele, G-Star, Jack & Jones, Oliver, River Island, H&M, C&A, PVH and Gap, have turned to Bangladesh in the last couple of years for denim product import.
Bangladesh is an attractive destination for fast fashion companies, including Zara, Bershka, Pull & Bear, C&A, etc., for because of speed, lack of tariffs, and desired quality.
Beximco is one of the unique completely vertical and state of the art setups in Bangladesh. It provides 360 degree services to its clients as a full-service vendor, manufacturing facility from fiber to retail, including spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, printing, finishing, digital printing, automated stitching, laundry, garment finishing and trims, including hang tags and labels. Designers are stationed in Barcelona, New York and Bangladesh, working directly with key brands and retailers to service them in trendy design and product development.
In Bangladesh, rapid development of local denim fabric with about 400 million meters of annual capacity supports its apparel production and strengthened its supply chain, which is backed up by an increasing spinning capacity.
Bangladesh has preferential treatment in EU with its GSP and duty-free access to markets in India, and some other countries. The unique thing about Bangladesh is that most of its 5,600 factories are concentrated in a limited geographical area around the capital city of Dhaka and the port city Chittagong. This creates the most unique cluster for denim and other apparel manufacturing worldwide.
Another major factor that goes in favor of Bangladesh is its huge pool of over 4 million skilled and semi-skilled labor, including women, which is difficult to find in other countries.
Jamal: Mostly they are asking for multi-blend qualities, like cotton/viscose/elastane, cotton/LENZING™ Modal/elastane, cotton/TENCEL™ Lyocell/elastane, cotton/poly/viscose/elastane, etc. Also, they are planning to shift some business from China to Bangladesh.
Shariful: Capability and capacity of the garment industry of Bangladesh is the most appealing I believe for the customers. Beside prices, customers are now more concerned about reducing lead time, where Bangladesh garment industry is responding very well.
Monjur: Normally, it is related to quality along with competitive price with delivery and service.
Carved in Blue: Have you been able to reframe the image of Bangladesh denim as higher quality?
Nauman: The denim industry is developing rapidly, improving skill in manufacturing with large contributions from a number of expats employed from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Italy and Germany, leading many of the companies to evolve out of the basic levels and move on to higher levels of denim productions. This enabled them to cater to a number of high-quality, conscious brands like G-Star and Uniqlo, for example.
Laundry developments in the country with a number of good units, roughly 650 units using Italian, Turkish, Pakistani and German expertise to upgrade the washing capabilities. This upward movement in the value chain became very important for Bangladesh as it enabled it to cater to all kinds of price, value and quality points in denim apparel—from the lowest to the highest. The Bangladesh apparel industry has taken lot of initiatives to become best in manufacturing which includes, sustainable manufacturing, moving from analog to digital and a strong ERP system to control operations.
Jamal: Yes. We are no more into basic denims, mostly we are catering to sustainable products like post-consumer wastage, TENCEL™ Lyocell with REFIBRA™ technology , TENCEL™ Lyocell, TENCEL™ Modal, organic, recycled spandex, Repreve® polyester, 100 percent recycled fiber denim, along with different aesthetic looks and different finishing processes.
Shariful: It’s a continuous process in which Bangladesh denim industry is well concentrated now. Mills are in better investment mood in R&D now. We will surely be seeing some good results in the years to come.
Monjur: Yes, it depends on the volume as well as the range of buyers.
Carved in Blue: What’s ahead for your company in 2019
Nauman: We are targeting over $500 million in apparel business in 2019. New clients from USA and North America will be on board, and businesses are expanding with existing clients. Sustainability initiatives from dyes and chemicals are expected to be in production, and retailers will use more and more sustainable fibers. Laundry operations have elevated their capability in terms of sustainable washes, focusing on water consumption, zero discharge, less load on effluent, and so forth.
Jamal: The year 2019, we are going to launch exclusively our new concept named “Balance.” Balance is described to bridge sustainability and denim fashion together. This bridging includes/covers the whole process from fiber—TENCEL™ Lyocell, TENCEL™ Lyocell with REFIBRA™ technology, TENCEL™ Modal, post-consumer wastage, organic and recycled elastane—to laundry, which will provide very green jeans without compromising the fashion of the denim.
Shariful: Envoy Textiles Ltd is one of the leading denim mills in Bangladesh, having a very good reputation. We’re now working more to increase our global presence—2019 will be a year of that kind.
Monjur: We are going for increasing our capacity from 4.5 million to 5.2 million yards of denim. We are coming along with the capacity of 4.5 million per month for woven. On the seasonal collection: we are working on sustainability, zero cotton concepts, waterless dyeing, and value-added products.
Carved in Blue: What’s next for denim in Bangladesh?
Nauman: Many denim mills are coming up with modern machineries to support apparel industries. Laundry is going to be more strong and sustainable. Lots of Chinese retailers will be on board.
Jamal: We believe the future of denim in Bangladesh would be sustainable denim.
Shariful: The Bangladesh denim industry already in a good shape now in respect of capability. It is the time to challenge our competitors in the global arena.
Monjur: Maybe it will be focusing more for the vertical setup. Buyers may prefer complete package programs to reduce the lead time.
Carved in Blue: What does Carved in Blue mean to you?
Nauman: It’s a passion! It is very strong platform for denim and jeans brands to create and prompt newness, sustainable products together with Lenzing. It’s a blog that researches into the inner working and innovations of the denim industry.
Jamal: Carved in Blue is really a huge subject to discuss. The changes we find in indigo, from when it was born to present time is really vast. Every day new things are happening all around the world. We see a lot of curve in denim in terms of structure, composition, weight, finishing process and so on. We are also a part of this. It is our passion to play with blue. Recently, we have developed a water and chemical saving process in indigo and finishing what we think a real big curve in blue.
Shariful: Carving in blue! Perfection and aesthetic, that’s what I mean.
Monjur: Sustainable concepts would be going under this concept. Using recycled or renewable resources the energy consumption and waste could be reduced.