Sports Wear & BD Industry- Part 02

A part of Functional Textiles.

It's a big opportunity for Bangladesh to expand its presence in the global sportswear market.

Sportswear has been used in playing as well as doing physical exercise, so the demand for sportswear in Bangladesh is boosting up gradually along with the international markets.

As a result, several sportswear manufacturing companies like Linktex Sportswear, Kadena Sportswear, Platinum Sports Bangladesh, Mars Sportswear Limited, etc have been established in Bangladesh.
Most of the international leading sportswear brands like Nike, Adidas, Puma, and Columbia sportswear are buying from Bangladesh, Besides some international brands like Decathlon, puma, Kelme, Li & Fung have set up their warehouses in Bangladesh to capture the market.

Bangladesh exported fan jerseys worth $1 billion for all 32 nations participating in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in what can be viewed as an illustrious opening for the sportswear sector.

We supply clothing to the leading brands in the international market, but we are always deprived of the value that we are supposed to get according to the quality of the clothes.

In this way, the garments made in our country are sold under the name of other big elite brands, but our genuine talent, energy, hard work, and fame in this sector is not being evaluated.

And, the scenario can be changed if we can make our brands by utilizing talent and strategy.

We can easily build a sound position in this market using the existing set up of machinery and manpower.
As we already have experience in making jerseys for the teams participating in the World Cup, we can use this experience to build a strong position among sportswear manufacturers in the world market. Because we can also produce synthetic fabric for sportswear by using existing machinery.

The additional requirement, in this case, is just to give a little technical training to the workers. Here, we need to invest in dyeing machinery to produce exportable products that exceed the demand of the local market. Because the dyeing process of woven or knit fabric differs from the dyeing process of synthetic fabric.

The lamentable thing is that most industrial owners are reluctant to make synthetic fabrics because of incurring additional costs, as separate dyeing machines are required to make synthetic fabrics.

Because of the scarcity of this synthetic fabric, the manufacturers have to import the synthetic fabric from China, which increases the initial price of the product and decreases the rate of dividends which is one of the main reasons for the reluctance of industrialists to produce sportswear.

With a strong strategy & initiative from the industry owners, this branch of synthetic fabric can be given a place in the garment sector of Bangladesh, and open the door to an alternative possibility for the industry.

Khadiza Newaz
Department of TMDM, 44th Batch
Bangladesh University of Textiles (BUTEX)