Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has asked government to form a minimum wage board to review existing wages of the RMG workers. Siddiqur Rahman, President, BGMEA explains despite the adverse situation the sector is currently going through, they have requested the government to take necessary measures to form minimum wage board for re-fixing minimum wages for garment workers in line with the provision of labor laws and to uphold the image both at home and abroad. He also suggested every factory owners should look for new markets and invest more in research and development.

Industry owners expect gas, power supply problem will be solved when government sets up LNG terminals. He said the value of taka against dollar, poor infrastructure and shortage of power and gas are the key challenges for the export oriented RMG sector.

In the last FY 2016-17,Bangladesh RMG exports to EU was 63 per cent, while to the US it was 19 per cent, Canada 3 per cent, Japan 3 per cent, Australia 3 per cent, Turkey 1 per cent and others 9 per cent. As per BGMEA, currently 4,482 garments factories are member of the associations where 4.4 million employees are working.