State Minister for Jute and Textiles Mirza Azam is looking for a competent and honest project director outside BJMC to set up a specialised jute mill.
The plant titled ‘Sheikh Hasina Specialized Jute Textile Mill’ will be set up in Mymensingh and got the approval from the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) last week.
The government will bear the whole estimated cost of Tk 519 crore to complete the project by Jun 2020.
The ministry sources said, the minister believes that Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) is a corrupt organisation and he would like to appoint a competent and experienced project director outside the institution.
BJMC, wholly run and controlled by the jute ministry, is perceived as one of the biggest white elephants in the public sector that eats up billions of taka as subsidy.
Currently, Bangladesh has 25 denim mills whose collective production capacity is 30 million yards a month against the demand for 60 million yards, according to Bangladesh Denim Expo.
The president of Exporters Association of Bangladesh Salam Murshedi said, “Bangladesh has a great prospect in exporting denim fabrics.”
According to Eurostat, statistics directorate of the European Commission, Bangladesh in 2017 exported denim products worth €1.30 billion.
However, Bangladesh’s closest competitor Turkey has posted a 4.36% growth to $1.12 billion in the same period. Bangladesh earned $507.92 million – a 9.55% growth – exporting denim products to the US markets last year.
The global denim market is expected to hit $64 billion by 2020, according to Bangladesh Denim Expo that takes place twice a year.
In 2014, the size of the global denim market was $56.20 billion.