Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) has sought a loan from the government on easy terms to overcome the losses caused by the quota reform movement and subsequent violence.
They made this demand in a letter written to Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali.
According to the letter, there has been a lot of damage to the export sector as the garment factories have been closed most of the time during the two weeks of unstable situation.
Garment factory owners are going through a tough time due to cancellation of purchase orders, reduced production, absenteeism of workers in factories and shortage of raw materials. Meanwhile, the time has come to pay the workers’ salaries for the last month of July.
BTMA says it will be possible for the factories to handle the situation if they are given bank loan for a period of one year at a maximum interest rate of 2 percent for the current month’s salary.
At the same time, BTMA demanded suspension of the ongoing loan installments. The letter said that it is now difficult for the export-oriented backward linkage industry, which has been running on losses, to repay the term loan installments.
In this situation, they demanded that all term loans be interest-free for the next six months and the payment of installments should be suspended.
BTMA President Mohammad Ali Khokon has appreciated the steps taken by the government to deal with the situation.
The letter mentioned that after the global economic recession, Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars created a crisis in the world economy. Due to this, the export orders of the textile sector are continuously decreasing. Gas crisis, almost 250 percent increase in prices, 70 percent increase in wages of workers, increase in interest rates on bank loans, non-payment of accepted bills, shortage of working capital and reluctance of banks to open LCs for import of cotton and other raw materials, above all reduction in cash assistance, are reducing export growth.
BTMA is the largest body in the textile sector having 519 spinning mills, 930 weaving mills and 366 dyeing-printing-finishing mills. The total investment in this sector in the last four decades is about 22 billion or 2 thousand 200 billion US dollars.
