As per current status, Bangladesh is the second largest garments exporting country in the world. However, there is a Monopoly gameplay surrounding the garments business. When it comes to announcing the term second garments exporter in the world, sounds wonderful and intriguing. But when we consider the business monopoly gameplay it really doesn’t seem much to be the second garments exporter in the world as most part of the business is controlled by other countries or the buyer. Let’s find out how the business is being controlled.
According to USDA report based on NBR statistics, 24 percent of Bangladesh’s cotton imports were from India in 2022. Benin, a West African country exported 16 percent of cotton to Bangladesh, Brazil exported 14 percent of cotton to Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, another West African country 10 percent, Cameroon 7 percent. Finally, Bangladesh imported 8 percent of its cotton from the USA in that year.
Now, from the mentioned cotton importing countries the largest garment importers from Bangladesh are USA and Brazil. In the year 2023, Brazil imported $50.287 million garments from Bangladesh which is a substantially good amount and on the other hand, the USA imported $7.29 billion garments from Bangladesh. However, in the case of Bangladesh importing Cotton from Brazil and the USA, the amount stands at Brazil ($490M) and the USA ($478M) according to the year 2022. Also, In that year, Bangladesh imported $942M worth of cotton from India, $405M worth of cotton from Benin, and $228M worth of cotton from Australia.
Now, the issue is Bangladesh is getting higher orders from the mentioned countries compared to other countries and the USA and Australia are the best purchasers. In the case of doing business with these countries, the cotton price needs to be considered. These countries can easily manipulate the market only by controlling the cotton price. Once the cotton price is fixed according to necessity, the yarn price jumps following that. So, the monopoly gameplay occurs with cotton price and once garments exporters lose their grip on cotton price, they lose the entire grip of garments price.
Due to continuous yarn price fluctuation, garment prices are becoming unbearably high and jumping on a regular basis. This unstable price of yarn has made the garments price in Bangladesh high and orders are getting away to countries like Vietnam, Myanmar etc.
Moreover, there is the issue of Trim and accessories nomination. In most of the cases, Trims and Accessories are nominated by the buyers of America and Europe which makes it very difficult for Bangladeshi businessmen to run their businesses.
When it comes to attacking the profit of the business, at one end the cotton price is controlled which enables American countries to control the price of the Yarn and on the other hand the trims and accessories nominations are going to Chinese suppliers which makes it very difficult for Bangladeshi Businessmen to run their businesses smoothly and the entire nation is under the trap of Monopoly gameplay of the Garments Business.
Finally, in order to survive this Monopoly Business Gameplay, Cotton Bale prices should be controlled while purchasing from any country and a total calculation should be done from Bale purchase to Garments price according to rough estimation.
