The global import has slowed down and the unit price is falling compared to last year, the year-end global clothing trade for 2023 will fall short of the level of 2022, said BGMEA President Faruque Hasan.
In a statement of BGMEA, sent on Tuesday, he said the advanced economies increased their interest rates to curb inflation, which has pushed the mortgage rate up as well, affecting consumers spending power and retail sales.
"This has adversely impacted the price level at global scale, so does for Bangladesh (the official unit price data by Eurostat and Otexa for January-October 2023 shows the downtrend). During the first ten months of 2023, the import of clothing by USA and EU has fallen significantly (USA’s global import of clothing declined by 22.71% in value and 23.80% in quantity, and EU’s by 13.14% in value and 16.74% in quantity during January-October 2023)", the statement said.
The global clothing export growth was recorded 7.26% in 2022, while the growth of Bangladesh’s export in the same year was 32.60% as per WTO, thanks to the resilience and pragmatic efforts made by you despite all the challenges and difficulties.
However, the end of 2023 adds a contrast to the scene as the holiday sales reach record height. There were projection around U.S. holiday spending (Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday) this year becomes true as the U.S. Census Bureau publishes the November updates of the retail sales report.
Even it is estimated that the number of one-day Christmas shoppers reached 142 million on the Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas), a record. This turnaround brings the hope for a better year ahead.
Faruque said "with all the positive hopes and vision, the reality is that we have to pay as per the new minimum wages from the beginning of the new year 2024. This is going to be quite challenging; we have to implement it fully in due time". He mentioned that the final gazette of the minimum wages of the garment workers was published by the government on 20th December 2023. As per the gazette notification, the new wage has come into effect from 1st December 2023 and the workers will start drawing the new wages in the beginning of the new year, i.e. January 2024.
Now, the industry is taking preparation to pay the workers as per the new wages. BGMEA has taken steps to clarify the new wage system and the changes among our member factories.
He informed that the BGMEA has already completed 13 workshops for the factory personnel, half-day each, covering 1900 participants from 1300 factories in total.
"Now, with the increase in minimum wages, there will be a significant impact on the overall cost of production, cost of goods and unit price. We want to pay higher wages to our workers, and there must be an enabling environment for the manufacturers to pay the due wages to the workers", Faruque said.