Textiles-garments Machinery
Exhibition in the city

Holiday Report

The Dhaka International Textiles and Garments Machinery Exhibition-2010 went under way in the capital on Tuesday.
   More than 700 textile and garment machinery manufacturers from 30 countries are showcasing their products at 960 stalls in the fair.
   Textile minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui, while launching the four-day technology fair at the Bangabandhu Intentional Conference Centre, suggested that the local textile and garment entrepreneurs should invest more in developing human skills for the benefit of the industry.
   'The industrialist's passion to be more tech-savvy is necessary and investing in the men behind the machines is also necessary,' said Siddiqui at the inaugural ceremony.
   The ceremony, chaired by the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association's president Abdul Hai Sarker, was also addressed by industries minister Dilip Barua.
   The textile minister suggested that besides investing more in the development of human resources, Bangladeshi entrepreneurs should put in maximum effort to ensure more local value addition in the export products. Industries minister Dilip Barua pointed out that the Bangladeshi textile industry is in a transformation phase from small scale to bigger scale.
   He told the audience that the government has prepared a new industrial policy which will be announced soon.
   'The upcoming industrial policy will encourage more investment in textile and other sectors,' said Barua.
   The BTMA, Hong Kong-based Yorker Trade and Marketing Services Company Ltd and Taiwan-based Chan Chao International jointly organised the biggest textile technology fair in this country, the seventh of its kind in Bangladesh.
   The exhibitors at the fair have brought various machines for the different sub-sectors in the industry to the fair. Machines for spinning, weaving, dyeing, stitching and finishing fabric or apparels are being exhibited.
   Officials of Yorker and Chan Chao told New Age that the exhibitors hope for a good response from local entrepreneurs. The demand for garments is set to increase again with the ebbing of the global recession, they pointed out.
   Increased demand for apparels from the foreign buyers will eventually require further expansion of the local industries' production capacity.
   A delayed impact of the global recession on the Western markets has held back the growth of Bangladesh's textile and garment exports since early last year so the demand for machinery declined.
   The BTMA's president recalled that recession also slowed down the industry's pace of diversification and made it difficult for them to vie with competitors of equal footing.

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Speakers at a consultation observed that informal facilitators play a crucial role in the labour recruitment process of Bangladesh. In this context they urged that measures should be taken to bring them under a formal framework. These observations were made at a consultation organised by Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) in the city last week. Presenting RMMRU's research findings on the Role of Informal Facilitators in the Labour Recruitment Process, Dr C R Abrar stated that these facilitators commonly known as dalal, provide information to aspirant migrants. They also act as intermediaries between the registered recruiting agencies and the aspirant migrants. Due to their limited reach in recruiting migrants, the registered agents depend on the informal facilitators, who in their turn use their social network at the grassroots to recruit workers. The research was conducted by RMMRU under the auspices of the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty.
   Speaking as the chief guest of the Elias Ahmed, Secretary, Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment (MEWOE), urged aspirant migrants to be more assertive in their relationship with recruiting agents and informal intermediaries. He stressed that all stakeholders of migration process should strive to make sure that the migrants should be gainfully employed during their stay abroad. He observed that before taking migration decision migrants should have at their disposal adequate information about the country of employment, work and living conditions. He also wondered why Bangladeshi recruiting agencies have to buy visa when their Nepalese and other South Asian counterparts do not have to do so.
   Khorshed Alam Chowdhury, DO, BMET, deplored the fact that existence of tiers of intermediaries and trading of visa by Bangladeshi recruiters are contributing to hiking up of the cost of migration in Bangladesh. Mr. Chowdhury informed that from the 7th of February 2010 the government is introducing SMART card that would contain vital information about migrants and will help curb irregular migration.
   Dr. Nurul Islam of BMET emphasised the need for large scale awareness campaign engaging both print and electronic media so that migrants can protect their interests against unscrupulous recruiting agents and subagents. Among others Abul Kalam, Deputy Secretary of MEWOE, BAIRA representative Shamim Ahmed Chowdhury and others also spoke.

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NUB Spring Semester orientation held

The orientation ceremony of Spring Semester 2010 of undergraduate students of Northern University Bangladesh (NUB) Dhaka Campus was held at the Banani Society (DIT) ground recently. Law Minister Barrister Shafiq Ahmed was the chief guest while Fazlul Hoque, President, BKMEA and Aftab ul Islam, FCA President, AmCham were present as the special guests Prof. Dr. M. Shamsul Haque, Vice Chancellor, Northern University, was in the chair.
   M. Abu Bakar Siddique, Treasurer, NUB Prof. Dr. Nurul Islam, registrar Prof. Dr. M a Razzak, head, Department of Business Administration, Prof. Dr. AWM Abdul Huq, dean, Faculty of Law, Prof. Dr. Mir Md. Akramuzzaman, dean, General Education, Prof. Dr. Sadruddin Ahmed, dean, Faculties, Arts and Humanities and Prof. Dr. Abdul Awal Khan were present. Barrister Shafiq Ahmed said, Private Universities should play a vital role for ensuring quality education.
   Prof. Dr. M. Shamsul Haque said, NUB is committed to creating higher education facilities.

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