Our Correspondent

CHITTAGONG, Feb 03: Despite adverse situation persisting in the global trade, the on-ward march of the garments industry of the country still continues. Seventysix per cent of total export trade comes from this sector and if the encouraging trend can be retained, the country is likely to earn upto US 25 billion by the year 2013.

Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) Chittagong regional Director Golam Mostafa expressed such a note of optimism while delivering his address of welcome in a seminar on "Readymade garments: its problems, prospects and competitiveness issues" arranged under the auspices of EPB, Chittagong region at its office in the city yesterday.

The speakers in the seminar said, following downtrend when the buying capacity of the buyers would come down, they would automatically search for the goods sold in cheaper rate.

As comparatively good quality of goods are produced in Bangladesh at cheap rate, the demand of Bangladesh made goods is on a rise in the developed countries.

They said in the field of readymade garments, when the competing countries have already closed their factories in the context of rise in expenditures following global downtrend, the foreign buyers are approaching Bangladesh. It has undoubtedly created a new ray of hope in the garments sector.

The speakers called for undertaking proper planning and guidelines for the garment industries of the country. BGMEA Director Mohiuddin Chowdhury attended the seminar as chief guest while EPB Director Abdur Rahman was the special guest.

As many as 80 representatives of different organisation took part in the seminar.