Export Scenario Between Bangladesh and China: Opportunities of Bangladesh in RMG Sector

The Ready-made Garment (RMG) industry has already promoted itself as the largest foreign currency earning sector for Bangladesh and occupying the 2nd position in leading exporters of clothing. From a humble beginning in late 70’s RMG sector has emerged itself and did employment about 4.5 million peoples. China is the largest clothing exporter and represents the lion’s share of the world market. In spite of being the second largest exporter, Bangladesh is far behind from China in any category of this sector including export earnings and a number of markets. Whereas China occupies one-third of global market share, Bangladesh has only 6 percent share in clothing export in the world but acts as a lifeline in her economy having 82 percent contribution of export earnings. Bangladesh could be more successful in this sector if it utilizes the available opportunities. For this, Bangladesh should try to grab the opportunities impeding in front because of backwardness of China in clothing export originating recently due to the transformation of the economy to high technology production and higher labor cost in garments. Hence it is important for policy makers to find out the facts and figure in exports of Bangladesh RMG to China. This paper will exhibit the comparativeness of Bangladesh vis-à-vis China in Ready-made Garment sector. Statistical analysis and secondary data sources have been used to make a broad discussion for this study. Bangladesh has the potentialities to be the next China if it can perform well according to the demand and challenges

Buyer Paying Lower Price of Bangladeshi Apparel: An Empirical Investigation on Causes

In the last few decades RMG sector has been acted as backbone of economy of Bangladesh. It consumed about 80% of foreign earning. In the recent time, it has been noticed that buyers are not interested to pay the equal price of garments from Bangladesh and from other countries although the quality remains same. For instance, per square meter priced $7.38 the products of Turkey$ 5.37 from Malaysia where $ 2.79 from Bangladesh. The main aim of this study is to find the causes of this. For this descriptive research method was followed and data were collected from secondary sources like case studies, journals, thesis papers, online newspapers, research articles, garments manufacturing industries annual reports, newspapers, survey reports, and BGMEA yearly report. After the study, it was observed that due to lack of diversified products, image crisis, poor negotiation techniques, labor and political unrest are the main reason behind this

Competitive Position of Bangladesh and China in the Global Clothing Export Market: An Analysis of Revealed Comparative Advantage

Purpose of the article: The Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry remains the most crucial segment of Bangladesh’s economy besides the agricultural sector in terms of foreign currency earning via export and employment generation. Several international studies predict that Bangladesh will be the next apparel sourcing hotspot after China due to the availability of reasonably priced labour force and other factors of production. This paper intends to exhibits the relative competitive position of China and Bangladesh for the ready-made garment industry in the global made-up clothing market and how its pattern has changed over the period of 2001–2017. Methodology/methods: Balassa’s RCA indices have been used to calculate for all the 34 product groups under HS 61 and HS 62 for up to four digits level of the study period of 2001 to 2017 of both countries. Descriptive statistical techniques have been applied to reveal the sustainability and predictability of the comparative advantage of both countries. Scientific aim: The findings of the study would be beneficial for the policy-makers and researchers in developing export promotion policies for generating industry competitiveness considering the valuable factors of both countries such as factors of production and geological position. Findings: The analysis has revealed that Bangladesh has achieved a significant comparative advantage over China in 26 product categories out of 34 product categories in 2017, whereas China has able to gain the RCA on only 8 product groups in the same study period. The findings also reveal that although Bangladesh has achieved significant RCA in most of the product types, its volatility remains on the higher side. Conclusion: This paper is one of the trivial pursuits to perform an organized analysis of revealed comparative advantage of Bangladesh and China on clothing (RMG) trade to major global market

Framework for Environmentally Sustainable Fashion and Textile Production to achieve United Nation (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12

A framework with three key actions - identify (I), act (A), and evaluate (E) to achieve complete environmental sustainability in fashion and textile production in line with SDG 12– has been developed as a part of a Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) project. Called as the ‘I-A-E framework’, it emphasises more on zero or near-zero waste generation at source and incorporating sustainability thinking in material and process selections, rather than post-production waste management after generating huge amounts of wastes and effluents. The first step involves ‘identifying’ present scenarios and points of action in context of resource consumption, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and solid waste generation in product development and production. The next step is to ‘act’ for sustainable development, which includes - incorporating a zero-waste philosophy during production, incorporating sustainability thinking into material selection and incorporating sustainability into production process, incorporating sustainability in resource and waste management. The third component of the framework is to ‘evaluate’ to celebrate and move forward by checking the eco-indices to amend targets or set new ones. This new framework was validated through stakeholders’ workshops and roundtable discussion. It is an easy-to-follow toolkit that the fashion and textile industry will be able to implement into their product development and production activities

Statistical analysis of Cotton-Jute blended ratio for producing good quality blended yarn

The present world is focusing on sustainable products. Most of the natural products collected from are environmentally friendly. In the textile sector the main raw material is fiber. Most textile products are made from the natural cotton fibers. But because of the shortage of this fiber, most of the researchers are looking forwards to other sources of natural fibers. Here in Bangladesh the natural jute fiber is available and the textile industries are making jute products but the jute products are comparatively lower price than cotton products. That's why some factories are making cotton-jute blended yarn to minimise the cost and increase the product's quality and appearance. Here in this research work, it was tried to identify the best cotton-jute blended ratio for producing good quality yarn. 80C-20 J, 60C-40 J and 40C-60 J blended ratios are compared with 100 C and 100 J yarn to analyse the results. The CV m%, Thick/Km +50 %, Neps/Km +200 %, IPI, RKM and Elongation% of blended yarns are evaluated and compared the results between the ratios. After that the yarn quality index (YQI) was calculated to identify the ratio which indicates a relation between yarns strength, elongation% and CVm. The other quality index was fiber quality index (FQI) which indicates a relation between fibers strength, fiber mean length, elongation% and fiber fineness. One way ANOVA was applied to see the significance level between the independent variables. Box plot was applied to see the visual effect of statistical analysis at the same time the regression results show the impact of cotton-jute ratio with an equation, through which it was easy to identify the perfect ratio. It was found that higher percentage of cotton and lower percentage of jute fiber blended yarn shows good results than others. The products which were made from the ratios were shown good results for their different use of purposes

Predicting the Mechanical Properties of Viscose/Lycra Knitted Fabrics Using Fuzzy Technique

The main objective of this research is to predict the mechanical properties of viscose/lycra plain knitted fabrics by using fuzzy expert system. In this study, a fuzzy prediction model has been built based on knitting stitch length, yarn count, and yarn tenacity as input variables and fabric mechanical properties specially bursting strength as an output variable. The factors affecting the bursting strength of viscose knitted fabrics are very nonlinear. Hence, it is very challenging for scientists and engineers to create an exact model efficiently by mathematical or statistical model. Alternatively, developing a prediction model via ANN and ANFIS techniques is also difficult and time consuming process due to a large volume of trial data. In this context, fuzzy expert system (FES) is the promising modeling tool in a quality modeling as FES can map effectively in nonlinear domain with minimum experimental data. The model derived in the present study has been validated by experimental data. The mean absolute error and coefficient of determination between the actual bursting strength and that predicted by the fuzzy model were found to be 2.60% and 0.961, respectively. The results showed that the developed fuzzy model can be applied effectively for the prediction of fabric mechanical properties

Investigating the Ideal Combination of Virgin Cotton Fibre Length with Recycled Fibre for Better Yarn Quality

This study examines the effects of blending virgin cotton fibres of selected lengths with a fixed percentage of recycled fibres on yarn quality. By choosing three different lengths of virgin cotton fibres and incorporating 20% recycled fibre, we investigate the resultant yarn properties through detailed statistical analysis. Our research identifies significant enhancements in yarn quality with increased virgin fibre length, offering new insights into effective fibre blending strategies. This investigation supports the textile industry in refining fibre blend ratios for improved yarn qualities while advocating for sustainable practices through the utilization of recycled fibres. It sets the stage for future exploration aimed at optimizing the balance between virgin and recycled fibres to achieve superior yarn characteristics

Coir fiber as thermal insulator and its performance as reinforcing material in biocomposite production

Coir is a lignocellulosic natural fiber derived from the coconut's husk, an abundantly found fruit or nut worldwide. This fiber has some unique characteristics, such as its resistance to seawater, microbial attack, high impact, etc. But its low thermal conductivity or high thermal insulating property makes it suitable for being used as insulators in civil engineering sites. On the other hand, the sustainability of a material depends heavily on its environmental impact of the material. For making sustainable materials like biocomposite, there are no options other than using polymers derived from natural renewable sources. Polylactic acid(PLA) is an example of those types of material. And these materials are often being reinforced by fibers like coir for various reasons including improving mechanical properties, reducing the cost of the material, and improving the material's sustainability. Many coir-reinforced sustainable biopolymer composites have already been produced in many pieces of research, which will be discussed in this paper, along with the chemical and physical structure of coir fiber. In addition, this paper will try to focus on the insulating properties of coir and coir-reinforced composites while will also compare some properties of the composites with some commonly used materials based on different parameters to show the suitability of using the coir fiber in heat-insulating applications and to produce sustainable biocomposite materials