Desk Report: Bangladesh Apparel Youth Leaders Association- BAYLA have published a White Paper titled ‘Road to Recovery’ on March 19, 2022, Saturday at Gulshan Club in the capital.. The paper was published in the presence of the president of BTMA Ali Khokon and executive president of BKMEA Mohammad Hatem and BAYLA members. The focus of the paper was to identify issues that are faced by the Bangladesh apparel industry and suggest some ways to recover from it.
The exploratory research was conducted in multiple phases. In the first phase BAYLA leaders’ opinions were taken through a survey. Findings were further discussed through five focused group discussions in the second phase. In the third phase BAYLA researchers further analyzed and verified the findings with secondary data. In the final phase, industry leaders, including association representatives gave their opinion on the findings and suggested ways to take the industry forward.
The research has identified 28 issues and suggested nine ways to recover from these issues. The issues include long lead time, rising raw material prices, falling buyer price, container shortage and port congestion, lack of diversification, lack of digitization, mid-management inefficiency and other logistics and supply chain related issues. Research also identified some future threats as well, including, another surge of covid-19 pandemic, competition from other countries, upcoming technologies and market access in post LDC era.
To recover from the issues and face the threats head on, White Paper laid out nine recommendations. Those are increase efficiency of mid-level employees, increase production efficiency, cut extra costs, build a positive brand image, explore new markets and products, include data into the decision-making process, minimize lead time, invest in backward and forward linkage industries and make the industry sustainable.
BAYLA president Abrar Hossain Sayem said, “BAYLA leaders are working towards building a baseline understanding of the industry to create a research-first environment. This White Paper is the first step towards that. We believe this White Paper will help stakeholders to understand the problems deeply so that everyone can play their part to solve each of them.”
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