E H Latifee, BKMEA asks for comprehensive branding policy to be initiated for facilitating Bangladesh RMG Industry (BRMGI)

A superb day indeed! Well, today (i.e., 9 August, 2016) I was present at the 3rd meeting addressing "Branding in International Trade: Context of and Recommendation for Bangladesh", called by Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) from the side of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers & Exporters Association-BKMEA.

The gist of my message that I pitched (i.e., took 30 minutes there in total) is as follow, which was highly appreciated by the Vice Chairman and CEO (Additional Secretary), Madam Mafruha Sultana, EPB,

1. Differentiated in between the implication of 'Country Branding', 'Sectoral Branding' and 'Product Branding' and asked the Committee to segregate the recommendations to initiate branding in export under these three headings which will have accord in between.
2. Showed the importance of Small and Medium RMG Enterprises (SMRMGEs) by recalling the fact that big factories are few and SMRMGEs are much more labour intensive. In addition, have argued that Large Enterprises are even deprived of and facing so many hurdles in the domestic arena, even there is again a 'gas price hike' proposal in the row to be enacted, where they are getting forced to retain there earned foreign currency elsewhere (validated this rationale, by fetching references from Economy Pages of 18 May, 2016 and 24 June, 2016 accordingly- Prothom Alo; Business Page of 16 June, 2016- The Daily Star)
3. Argued against the notion put by a representative who was saying that agro-processing sector has earned US$ 203 million so that according to him, this sector has contribute 2% to the GDP in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015-16, and that is why EPB should focus on more at them but not in some selective products like ‪#‎RMG‬, picking up his this point, I replied by conducting a very simple calculation that US$ 203 million= US$ 20.3 crore, and at FY 2015-16 the GDP was US$ 200 billion= US$ 20,000 crore, that means his presented sector had only 0.1015% share in last FY's GDP. Hence, I asked the forum not to divert from the main objective- earning more foreign currency through branding and placed the importance of RMG in entire economy and also said that still it's unexplored as if we are making only few RMG basic products. And now the few entrepreneurs are taking steps to manufacturing and exporting high-end RMGs and they are proving themselves to be successful, so that RMG sector has still to go thousand miles to transform entire industry manufacturing high-end RMGs which will instigate earning 7-8 times foreign currencies very soon than now.
4. Have also talked about ‪#‎Brexit‬ (23 June, 2016), depreciation of Pound Sterling about 17% against of Taka, before that even, depreciation of US$ by 7.76% against of Taka at last FY that would impact RMGs earnings just after 6-7 months. Moreover, recalled the Indian Special Package for Textile (22 June, 2016) and Myanmar's recent high gains in RMG exports and discussed the implications of these upon Bangladesh.

Well, there were additional points, but as this FB status has become so large, I am stopping myself! However, the sweetest moment for today was, CEO of EPB applauded me in front of all just before closing the meeting by saying, "Young generation like you are coming up with very authentic data and information even with date and source page from the newspaper, is really very appreciable, and for you people we do dream of progressive Bangladesh." I was seriously touched by this today.

‪#‎Long‬ live my Bangladesh, may you progress in sustained ways.

~ ‪#‎EHLatifee‬