Badsha Group of Industries, one of the largest business groups in the country’s textile and apparel sector, is setting up a state-of-art readymade garment unit with a target of $700 million export earnings a year. During a recent visit at the project site at Madhabpur in Habiganj, it was found that construction of the unit was going on and the production started in one floor on a limited scale.
Badsha Mia, founder of the Group, said that the production would be started on a large scale at the unit in 2024 and the factory would create employment for at least 15,000 people. He said that they had a target to export denim apparel worth $700 million a year and the target would be implemented in three phases with a five-year time frame. According to Badsha, they are setting up the denim garment unit with a cost Tk 800 crore and the group also invested a huge amount to set up a spinning mill to ensure available supply of fabrics to the garment manufacturing unit.
During the visit, it was found that the construction of denim garment unit was underway on 200 bighas of land and the construction of five-storeyed building for research and development was almost completed.
A sample section and an international standard display centre for the denim garment would be accommodated in the building.
The Badsha Group started its journey in 1976 and the company has set up a denim fabrics manufacturing unit namely Pioneer Denim on 150 acres of land in 2017. Pioneer Denim produces 7 million yards of fabrics a month and the export earnings of the unit was $120 million in the financial year 2023-24.
Badsha, also the managing director of Badsha Group, said that they had 48 global buyers, including Inditex, Next, C&A and H&M, on their buyers’ list.
‘Our buyers suggested us establishing a denim garment unit and they promised that they would provide us support by placing orders,’ he said. He also said that there was a huge potential of Bangladesh-made denim garment on the global market, as Chain was shifting their business from the RMG manufacturing to other areas. Badsha said that they would produce mainly denim bottom wear in his unit.
According to the official data of the United States and the European Union, Bangladesh is the highest exporter of denim on the global market. According to the data of Eurostat, statistical office of the European Union, Bangladesh’s denim export to the EU in January-August of 2023 stood $783 million.
The US Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel data showed that Bangladesh’s denim exports to the US was $434 million in the first eight months of 2023.
