Shawdesh Desk:

In a bid to capture more global share and ease of doing business, the government has taken up timely steps for the readymade garment sector to bring more forex for the country.

The Ministry of Commerce has incorporated ten recommendations in its “Policy Guideline, 2020 of Trade Facilitation and Ease of Doing Business for Readymade Garment” to put focus exclusively on the country’s biggest export earning sector.

The ministry has prepared the report following the recommendations of a committee comprised of representatives of the government and RMG sector stakeholders.

The report mentioned solving technical problem in uploading export documents to the website by Bangladesh and reducing lead time to compete with global pace and steps of ensuring GSP+ facility in EU markets.

For exclusively apparel sector, the ministry will take steps to remove all sorts of dual organisational procedures including getting permit papers for doing business and ensuring special service by the government service-providing organisations.

Alongside the one-stop service for apparel makers, the government will also take initiatives to manufacture high-end products in the sector for attracting big buyers in the global market.

The report also mentioned providing necessary policy and financial support for building a strong backward linkage in oven sector, negotiating with the big apparel destination countries to get tariff facility and other benefits.

In the policy guidelines 2020, it is believed that reduction in lead time will boost the export competitiveness in the global arena and the cost of doing business will decrease that will ultimately boost the opportunity of doing business.

The new policy guidelines will only be for the apparel sector and export whereas it will not be applicable for the businesses in export-processing zones.

Focusing on investment, sources at the Commerce Ministry said the new policy guidelines will focus on ensuring sustainable apparel business and employment generation. To face the challenges caused by corona virus pandemic for the RMG sector, the government will continue  creating special fund, keep up existing stimulus package and increase the stimulus if required to mitigate the loss of RMG sector.

Faisal Samad, senior vice-president of BGMEA, said being the parent ministry for RMG sector, the Ministry of Commerce takes care of apparel sector’s business development and growth.

“The government formulates policy and other guidelines for RMG sector, but the outcome depends on their implementation,” he told daily sun.

Talking about the lead time, Faisal said they are relentlessly working with the government to reduce the time between the initiation and completion of a production process. “Compared to the previous time, lead time has reduced significantly,” said the BGMEA senior leader.