The only condition in which one can play with the delivery date is when the company is doing basic and complicated garments in large quantities… Bangladesh till recently had been famous for manufacturing basic garments at a very competitive price in expected quality, so it could take leverage on timely deliveries. But not anymore now… with wages going up and compliance needs getting stringent, having a reliable integrated setup is important to meet international expectations and many big groups have invested in textiles to reduce dependency on imported fabrics and have a better control over the supply chain. Envoy Group is among the handful of companies who have been able to successfully complete this transition from apparel to fabric manufacturer. In an exclusive interaction with Apparel Online, Abdus Salam Murshedy, Managing Director, Envoy Group, shares his vision both for his country and company.

This leading apparel and textile conglomerate has 15 apparel manufacturing units, a washing unit and fabric manufacturing facility, besides diversification in freight forwarding, trading, business solutions, banking and hospitality. The opportunity presented by the country’s apparel manufacturing sector for development of domestic fabric manufacturing capabilities is tremendous and Bangladesh has already developed a good knit fabric manufacturing base, since knit apparels account for majority of the country’s apparel exports. “We are already satisfying 85 per cent of our knit fabric requirement through locally manufactured fabric but the figures are exactly opposite in case of woven fabrics, with over 70 per cent of the fabrics being imported from countries like Pakistan, India, Taiwan and China,” shares Murshedy, a firm believer of import substitution. “We are already satisfying 99 per cent of our industry’s accessory requirements and sourcing only a negligible amount from outside, which many people don’t know about,” he adds.

Having served his tenure as the President of the BGMEA, Murshedy is credited for getting investors and experts from India and Japan to facilitate textile manufacturing in the country, but he still feels the need of more open policies for encouraging foreign investors to establish fabric manufacturing entities in the country. “The buyer prefers companies with fabric manufacturing capabilities and hence we need to find a solution to all the bottlenecks faced by us as we have no option left,” believes Murshedy.

Foreseeing the opportunity in the denim bottom manufacturing segment of the country which was greatly dependent on fabrics from China and India, both Kutubuddin Ahmed, the Chairman and Murshedy setup Envoy Textiles Ltd. in the year 1999. The denim unit which is spread in an area of around 50 acres with an annual production capacity of 24 million yards will soon double its denim manufacturing capacity to 50 million yards per annum. The company manufactures a wide range of denim fabrics – 4.5 oz to 14.75 oz in cotton, cotton polyester, cotton linen, tencel, etc. “Basic denims largely dominate consumption in Bangladesh, even as there is a trend towards more value-added fabrics. We want to be among the first to showcase our capabilities in innovative, high-end fabrics, it is then that buyers will know what can be manufactured here.

Under the proficient supervision and guidance of the management, our Chairman has specifically been making conscious and consistent efforts to move into the mid- to high-end segment, and vacate the lower end of the spectrum. “For this, our focus has been on machinery, personnel, product development, and very importantly, moving into denim fabric exports. Export is our way of ensuring that we are competitive in the world market,” believes Murshedy. Envoy is now in the process of setting up a development centre, with a design team, that works closely with trends from Italy and elsewhere. On the same lines, Envoy has in place a fine mix of qualified professionals from within the country, and also from India and China. “China is already a big market for Bangladesh in terms of apparel exports and only last year Bangladesh exported apparels over US $ 100 million, that too all duty-free. But we recently exported our first consignment of denim to China which is an important step for us as we are exporting to a country that is one of the largest manufacturers of denim. Other export markets include India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, Vietnam, Cambodia, Kenya etc.,” informs Murshedy. Being a bottom manufacturer, Envoy utilizes around 10 per cent of its fabric production for in-house consumption.

The Group which ventured into garmenting with a setup of less than 50 machines, and seeing the opportunity in the business in the post-quota regime, presently has more than 7,000 sewing machines, divided into 15 garmenting units, contributing US $ 150 million to the group turnover out of US $ 220 million. With the consistent rise in labour wages, operating overheads and no increase in the FOB offered by the international retailers, Envoy Group has not only relied on automating its apparel manufacturing units but is also coming up with a ‘Green’ factory with 60 sewing lines for producing multiple products and washing pants, installed with an ETP plant and spread over an area of around 10 acres. The investment in the project would be about US $ 32 million and is projected to hike Envoy Group’s garmenting turnover to US $ 200 million by the end of 2016.

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