Big Hope for Bangladeshi Protective Gears in the Global Arena Europe, UK, USA and Middle Eastern companies have shown interest to import protective gears (Mask and PPE) from Bangladesh. But quality protocols of the protective are the main barriers before grabbing the high-end market, Commerce Ministry sources said.
“Government agencies and reputed brands from UK, Switzerland, UAE and some other middle eastern countries have recently communicated our commercial councilors and diplomatic mission to outsource protective gears from Bangladesh,” Md. Obaidul Azam, Additional Secretary to the Commerce Ministry told Business Mirror Wednesday.
A total of 27 local readymade garment manufacturing companies informed the ministry last week that they are producing protective gears and interested to export.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturing and Exporters Association (BGMEA) is working on to develop an internationally standard quality protocols for protective gears so that buyers can accept them with full confidence. “Following the potentials and huge demand, we, in association with buyers, are working on to develop quality protocols for protective gears,” a BGMEA member said. The government is working on to provide support to the BGMEA for developing the protocol. “The Taskforce formed to offset impact on Bangladesh Trade and Commerce is in talks with the BGMEA so that it could provide financial and technical support in development of such quality protocols,” Obaidul Azam said. Global protective clothing market was valued US$8.0 billion in 2018 which is now estimated $40 billion by 2022. The Protective equipment consists of garments placed to protect the health care workers or any other persons to get infected. These usually consist of standard precautions: gloves, mask and gown. Protective clothes are designed to prevent the persons from coming in contract with adverse element of the environment thus providing protection and reducing risk of exposure of fire, heat, chemical, mechanical and virus. Bangladesh is in dire steps to revamp its export basket which has been suffered for coronavirus pandemic since April. The country’s export earning has reduced by 18 per cent in 11 months of the July-May period compared to the export performance same period of the previous fiscal year. Bangladesh earned US$30.97 billion during the July-May period in 2019-20 fiscal year which was 37.75 billion in same period of the previous fiscal year.