Textile Industry Scenario of Bangladesh-5

Programme suggestions
In addition to the principles that are part of all DwB-projects, I have taken the liberty of formulating some principles for development projects in the field of textile design in Bangladesh that I find especially important for future projects.

Principles
In order to create lasting effects, the aim of any DwB project should be to leave as much expertise in Bangladesh as possible. An aspect of this is the length of a programme, which is also being stressed by our Bangladeshi contacts. Potential project participants from the West will have to learn about local skills, materials, and production processes etc. in order to make suggestions and design that will have a long-term positive effect.

Participation in a project should always represent an investment for the participants. Only then will the motivation for development be present, " there should be no such thing as a free lunch"

It is the nature of organizing projects as a means of developing, that everything cannot be planned in advance. There must be room for adjustments within the project process.

Because the supply of designers is so little and the time it will take until the educational institutions can provide qualified graduates is so long, the emphasis in development projects should be on training in the workplace, enhancing existing skills. As a consequence hereof, product development should be combined with training in the workplace. A German industrial designer claims that training should be 50 % of a design job.

Developing projects in Bangladesh should be done in such a way that all participants feel ownership to the project, if possible having cooperated in developing the project plan.

Projects for Whom?
As pointed out by Mr. Chand in his report on the Norad jute project, the large mills and the smaller crafts producers do not have the same importance to the economy of Bangladesh. Only the backing of the mills can provide a production volume that will give substantial gains to the economy.

The producers are economically important in a different way, mainly by offering jobs to the rural population, especially women, mr Chand writes. The economical importance of the Crafts Sector should, however, not be underestimated, as the entire handloom industry, supplying 77% of the local market, could not do without the crafts businesses.

Which markets?

If a designer is required to design for a foreign rather than local market, then certain skills are not able to develop in a full and relevant way. The problem is the same for designers either in industry or crafts. In many respects they are being asked to design for virtual situations only. After all, very few of the designers in these businesses will ever get the chance to visit the markets they design for, let alone be able to spend time enough in them to really develop an understanding of the nuances of a situation.

Accordingly, western designers can best help with designs for the export markets of Bangladesh. However, as the local market is changing rapidly due to the increasing buying power of an internationally oriented middle class, the products designed for the export market may very well have a future in the local market.


Target Groups
Concluding my investigations in Bangladesh, we have found it useful to make three potential target groups for project proposals, as these groups, as far as we can see, have different needs.


1. The Jute Mills

2. The Crafts and Textile Producers

3. The Design Education Institutions

Further development of soft thread and fabric
As Mr. Chand writes, it is a good way to look at the new jute fabric treating is as a material, "the first step in the development". The development of a softer thread will open up large markets. Research, producing a softer thread, is also important for the crafts producers. Sustainable development of blended threads undoubtedly has a large potential. Some of the craft producers express interest in testing mixes of jute/pineapple, jute/banana etc.


Training in companies in the West

This was mentioned as a means of supplying further education to employees in the mills.

Potential partners

As potential partners for these project ideas, have been mentioned:

DTC

South Asia Enterprise Development Facility, SEDF

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, BUET

Educational institutions in the West

Design companies

Finding the right partners will need further investigation.

Most of the crafts producers that are interested in textile sector, are small businesses and have a limited production, making, or wanting to make, crafts products for niche markets. Reaching out to high status niche markets, design, quality and ability to deliver will be the deciding selling factors, not the price. This is to the best for Bangladesh producers, who neither in the short nor in the long run will be able to compete with China and India on price.

As potential partners have been mentioned:

• National Crafts Council of Bangladesh (Bangladesh Jatiya Karushilpa Parishad)

• Banglacraft

• Traidcraft

• Voluntary Service Overseas

• International design education institutions

• International design companies

• International design and crafts organizations

Proposals for the Design Education Institutions
Design awareness does not have to be learnt through experience, it obviously can be taught.


The educational institutions in Bangladesh as described in the report, are few and far between. The BIFT and the Shanto-Mariam University of Creative technology are both very young institutions, the BIFT being the "oldest" was established in 1999. These institutions are not only young, they are also weak. There are many warning voices being heard in Bangladesh as far as cooperating with "non-established" institutions that may be too weak to survive.


On the other hand, the weaknesses also make a need for support very obvious. The one aspect will have to be weighted against the other in the farther discussions within the DwB. The support needed as described by the BIFT and the Shanto-Mariam University of Creative Technology can be divided into these areas:

As far as student exchange programmes can be developed, this would most probably have a positive effect both in Bangladesh and the cooperating institutions.

• International design education institutions

• International design companies

• International design and crafts organizations

The potential partners are described in the Appendix at the back of the report.


Further investigations
Recommendation is that further investigations in Bangladesh should be undertaken, especially looking into

• Other product development programs run by NGOes and donors

• Potential partners


Trade in Textiles and Clothing after 2005.


Listen to politicians, trade specialist and some academics and you will get the impression that the future is always going to be bright, for all, everywhere. In the common language of the casino "Everyone's a winner".

Spend some time on the ground, however, and doubts soon begin to creep in. Listen to manufacturers, workers and it quickly becomes clear that, in trade, for every winner there are numerous losers.

In the Textile and Clothing sector it is hard to see that the enormous amount of trade generated in recent years has been spread evenly and has benefited those employed in the sector. In spite of the huge expansion of the industry in many countries living standards have actually fallen.


No wonder to take Bangladesh. In less than 20 years employment in the garment sector there grew to more than 1.5 million, mainly young women workers.

Most work 7 days a week often 12 to 14 hours per day. Existing labour legislation is largely ignored. Health and safety is of little consideration. Hundreds of workers were burnt to death in factory fires in recent years.

Bangladesh's legal minimum wage was last raised in 1994. It was then worth Euro 33 a month. Today it is worth less than Euro 17. So in nine years real wages have halved. At the same time a great many companies in the country, perhaps the majority, don't even pay this amount for a standard working week.

Bangladesh is not, in any way, unique. Real wages have fallen in every continent. Gross abuses of worker rights are commonplace as companies in countries tussle for competitive advantage. As a consequence most workers can't afford to purchase the goods they themselves produce. Thus no real local markets have been developed and the industry depends for its future on exporting to a handful of nations.

It is clear that across the world there has been no even spread of benefits from trade in textiles and clothing to date.


What about the future?

Today 130 countries are producing textiles and clothing for export to markets in only about 30 nations. Many of these 130 are totally dependent on those exports in terms of foreign exchange earnings and employment.

Take Nepal. Their garment export arose by 38% in 1999 and 44% in 2000. They now represent 25% of the country's total export trade.


Take Pakistan. There the textile sector accounts for 60% of all exports with 1.4 million workers employed.

Take India. Here again textile and clothing constitutes more that a third of the country's export trade. 94% of all garment exports go to the United States or the European Union.

Take Bangladesh. Here garments account for 75% of all exports. The industry employs 1.5 million workers and provides 70% of all formal sector employment for women. Bangladesh is totally dependent on its export trade with the European Union and the US which take 95% of all textile and clothing exports.

In export and employment terms the picture is similar for a huge number of countries: Lesotho, Mauritius, Tunisia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Honduras, El Salvador, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The list is almost endless.

So countless countries and their peoples are highly dependent on the benefits of textile trade being spread evenly. This hasn't happened in the past so is it likely to improve after the abolition of quota controls under the Multi-Fiber Arrangement at the beginning of 2005?

Evidence to date gives huge cause for concern. Last year's US trade statistics suggest that China is increasingly dominating world trade in textiles and clothing and will intensify its dominance after 2004. In the first ten months of 2002, China's textile and garment exports to the United States increased by 105%. Most developing countries saw their exports fall, Bangladesh by 5% and Jamaica by 19% for example.


A glimpse of the future is provided by what happened during those same 10 months to textile and clothing items freed from quota for the first time in 2002. Imports of all such garment items to the United States for the first ten months of the year saw China's share jump by 30% while the rest of the world suffered a 28% fall.

At the same time the prices of Chinese imports fell by 35% while those from the rest of world fell by 11%.

These figures suggest that China is driving other developing countries out of the US market and China's deflationary impact will further drive down wages and worsen working conditions in the sector. Already consultants in countries like Bangladesh are blaming labour protection for the lack of competitivity of the local industry when pitched against China.


Today, China's strength as a global garment exporter is not seriously rivaled by any other single country. Rather, it competes with entire trading blocks of countries.

It looks as if we are moving to a unipolar world in textiles where China is the pole.

A further look at US imports of individual items removed from quota in 2002 confirms this view. For example, China's exports of printed cloth to the United States increased by 65% in the first 10 months of 2002 while India's exports fell by 48%, Bangladesh's by 42% and Indonesia's by 34%.

In infants wear, China increased its exports to the United States by an amazing 306% in the same period while the Philippines saw its exports drop by 20%, Mexico's drop by 17% and Bangladesh's drop by 16%.

If the situation continues like this many developing countries dependent on exports of textiles and clothing are likely to see their economies destroyed over the coming few years.


This is already beginning to happen with factories closing across the world as orders are re-directed to China. According to Bangladesh's Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association hundreds of factories have closed there in the last year or so and thousands of jobs have been lost. Factories are also closing with huge job losses in Mexico, Indonesia, across Central America and even in Turkey. As a consequence workers everywhere are being told that they must be more competitive if they are to survive in a textiles and clothing world dominated by China. The message here is clear, wages will have to fall and working conditions worsen.

The ITGLWF in reviewing the situation across the world believes that one million jobs could be lost in Bangladesh alone as a result of the abolition of quotas at the beginning of 2005. A further million jobs could be lost in Indonesia, tens of thousands in Sri Lanka and literally millions of other jobs in every continent across the world.

What future would there be for a country like Bangladesh so dependent on textiles and clothing exports if the industry is thus driven out of business? What will happen to the one million workers, mainly young women, who will be displaced?

This can not be permitted to happen. Steps must be taken to ensure that trade in textiles is arranged in such a way as to promote real sustainable development.

Accordingly, the ITGLWF and each of its regional organizations and a great many of its affiliates are convinced that any strategy for the future of the textiles and the clothing industries must include action on the trade and industrial policy fronts.

The sectors today face a crisis globally that is likely to worsen following the end of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement at the end of 2004. Clearly the future of the industries is being dictated by globalization driven by the major economic and trading blocks and nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the transnational manufacturers, merchandisers and retailers who dominate the sector.

The crisis in the sector is not due to overcapacity or overproduction as some contend. In stead it is grounded in under consumption with hundreds of millions of people, including workers employed in the textiles, clothing and footwear export industries, not able to afford decent clothes or shoes. It is now urgent that global trading arrangements, a key element of sustainable development, are used to ensure that trade in textiles, clothing and footwear benefits those employed in their production. The ITGLWF accordingly believes that an urgent review of trade liberalization, particularly its impact on employment and working conditions is labour intensive industries such as textiles, clothing and footwear is needed.

In addition there must be tripartite involvement in all future trade negotiations. The inclusion of labour standard conditionalities in all international trade agreements is imperative.

Continuation of trade regulation after the end of the Textile and Clothing Agreement in 2005 and its extension to footwear is necessary to enable measures designed to help emerging and struggling industries, particularly in developing countries, adjust to meet the threat posed by dominant producers such as China, including clear restraints on such dominant producers. Finally the promotion of trade based on respect for international labour standards through rewards and sanction-based mechanisms must be a central part of any trade policy.

On the industrial front all countries with significant textiles and clothing industries should establish a development strategy for the textile, clothing and footwear industries. This strategy should provide for interventions in areas such as; respect for international labour standards; worker development especially the development of women workers; skills training; technology diffusion; productivity; improved management; enhanced quality; and market development both internally and externally.

In short, production of and trade in textile, clothing and footwear items can not continue to serve only the interests of multinational merchandisers and retailers in a handful of industrialized countries.

The new era that will be ushered in by the termination of the Multi-Fiber Agreement provides the opportunity for real change. However, the real question is, do our politicians and trade specialists have the courage to promote sustainable development in the sectors. If they don't -millions of workers and their families face a dire future. A future where there can be only one huge winner - China -and millions of losers elsewhere.