The history of the general buttons is the golden button
- Mostafa Al-Takbir (Mahim),
Among the reasons why the name of Bangladesh is known all over the world, the garment industry is most important. Through the export of garments, Bangladesh earns a lot of foreign currency. Millions of households depend on the lives of the families of this garment industry. At present, the garment sector of Bangladesh is holding a prestigious position in the world market. This pillar of garment industry was not written in one day. Bangladesh has been established in today's established position through the pursuit of labor of many years. Bangladesh's garment industry is not much ancient but behind it there is a long history.
In compared to 1755 when people started using sewing machines, 1960 when Bangladeshi garment industry started could be much later. However the history of textiles in this land is much more ancient. Glory of Muslin is well known all around the world. And Bangladesh bearing the legacy of one of the finest textiles in the history of the mankind eventually has become 2nd highest garment exporter in the world.
However in a new world order, Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA), an international trade agreement that introduced quota system in textile and clothing export from developing countries to developed countries helped Bangladesh to build the current form of the industry. MFA was effective from 1974 to 2004, and opened an unprecedented opportunity for the developing world and for Bangladesh.
As per the available information, in 1978, Riaz Garments exported first consignment of garment from Bangladesh. But by many, Desh garment is called the first garment because Desh garment is the first 100% export oriented garments factory. South Korean Daewoo is the first among the foreign companies who invested in the textile industry of Bangladesh. In 1977 they started a joint venture export-oriented garment industry. After one year, 130 supervisors and managers of that company were trained in South Korea especially in production and marketing. Many of those 130 trained people have become major garment producers of Bangladesh. Many of them have become RMG entrepreneur later on.
In 1965, Mr. Riaz Uddin, owner of Riaz Store, visited a garment factory exporting 100,000 pieces of garment in Karachi. Since then, the Conservatory has been dreaming of exporting garments abroad. Then in 1973, Riaz changed the name of the store to Riaz Garments and started working for garment export. Finally comes the dream day. On July 25, 1978, with the help of Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), men's shirts were first exported from Bangladesh for four lac taka.
At that time women were not working in factories. He failed to recruit women workers in his production. Then Riaz Uddin, owner of Riaz Garments, first engaged his daughter to make garments in Riaz Garment. Seeing her daughter, more women got interest to come to this profession. And this number gradually continued to grow. And the history of women workers in the current garment industry started.
Riaz Uddin saw West Pakistan lurking East Pakistan. In East Pakistan, the garment industry did not grow. Since then, he had persistence in his mind. If West Pakistan can export clothes outside, why cannot we? From that persistence, Riaz started garments and exported first. The gentleman said that he used to put plenty of paper ads at that time. Film star Razzak was once his brand ambassador. In the 80's, their ads were broadcasted on BTV. They had a creative logo. The Riaz text in the logo was having the Bengali and English R characters beautifully.
Garments became main source of export earning of Bangladesh in the 80's. Chittagong's main export port was built meanwhile. In 1981, 300 textile industries were transformed into a private owned institution. In 1981, the amount of readymade garments exported was $ 3.5 million whereas in 2007 it increased to $ 10.7 billion 3000 times higher.
From 1995 to 2005, the World Trade Organization's Textile and Cloth Agreement (ATC) contract helped Bangladesh to find markets in America, Canada and Europe. Despoite the phase out of MFA by the end of 2004, the industry got huge growth by 2005 and 2007, proving that the country was not dependent on quota. And afterwards the 2009-2009 global economic crisis didn’t have any bad impact on Bangladesh.
Due to the increase of costs in China and quality delivery of Bangladeshi companies helped the sector to expand. In 2006, Bangladesh ranked sixth among RMG exporting countries in the world after China, EU, Hong Kong, Turkey and India, but crossed most others to become second in 2011 within only 5 years. In the fiscal year 2012-13, the export crossed 23 billion dollars.
In 2011, according to the International Business Advisory Society of Mechanics, 80% of import dependent garment companies in Europe considered importing from Bangladesh instead of China. Because Bangladesh is the country where clothing could be produced at lowest price but best quality.
Meantime Bangladesh experienced its most terrible experiences Tazreen Fire and Rana Collapse. Two major accidents in the history of the world but again the country has shown its resilience once again and already have transformed the sector into one of the most safe in the world. Two accidents helped Bangladesh and its partner brands and countries to run one of the greatest safety crack-down programs in the history of global manufacturing industries. Under a tri-partite program Bangladesh government, Accord and Alliance have inspected most of the factories. A good number of them have been shut down due to safety concerns. Most of them went through major remediation programs. Now Bangladesh proudly can say that Bangladesh possess an industry that is all well traced, safety assessed, competitive safe haven for global brads to produce their clothing here.
The reason that is considered to be the core competitiveness for today's position in Bangladesh's garment industry by cutting down many problems like weak infrastructure, power shortage, import-dependent raw material, global economic slowdown, is the huge bunch labor force. Since the workers of this country are working on very little wages, Bangladesh's garment industry has raised its head today. And so Bangladesh counld export garment at a cheap rate to the brands who are making good profit in the west and consumers all around world can still buy garment prodcuts at a cheap rate. And only because them people from all over the world know and respect Bangladesh.