Closure of non-compliant factories is good for the country: Press Secretary

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has said that 258 export-oriented ready-made garment factories in the country have closed in the past one year. Although the interim government has been indirectly blamed for this incident, Shafiqul Alam, the press secretary to the chief advisor, has given a different opinion in response to this allegation.

In his Facebook post on Friday (October 31), he said that the closure of factories is not a new phenomenon; rather, it is part of a long-term structural change in the Bangladeshi garment industry.

The press secretary wrote: “There was a time when there were more than five thousand garment factories in Bangladesh. Many companies were operated in residential areas and multiple factories were run in one building. For example, there were five garment factories in the Rana Plaza building, one of which was Phantom Apparels.”

He also said: “In the 1990s and 2000s, there were small factories employing more than a hundred workers in areas like Malibagh and Gazipur in Dhaka. But over time, many factories have been closed or relocated due to compliance issues or safety risks.

Shafiqul Alam said that currently there are a little over 2,000 factories active in the country, whereas in the 1990s the number was around 5,000. Yet, the export earnings are now 4-5 times higher, which is much better than then.

He gave an example: “Now, companies like Yangwan and Ha-Meem Group alone are exporting more than a billion dollars of garments annually. Ha-Meem Group alone employs about 50,000 workers.”

He said that in the last 25 years, about 3,000 garment factories have closed due to various reasons—compliance issues, poor management, credit crisis, sector changes and entrepreneurs moving abroad are among them.

However, he believes there is nothing to worry about. He wrote: “As long as exports are increasing, closing non-compliant or unsafe factories is good for the country. Bigger factories usually mean better compliance and safety."

The press secretary alleged: "The BGMEA and some journalists close to them are presenting the factory closures as a failure of the government. Even some left-wing critics are claiming it as the beginning of the decline of the industry, while they are not looking into whether the workers have found work again in bigger and better factories."

Finally, he added: "Where there were about three million garment workers in the country in the beginning of 2000, that number has now stood at 4.5 million. So even though the factories have decreased, both employment and exports have increased."