Vice President of BGMEA, Mr. Md. Shahidullah Azim tells us about the current condition and potential of the garments sector of Bangladesh.
Q: At first we would like to know where you were born, where you studied and about your graduation background.
Shahidullah Azim: I was born in Dhaka, brought up in Dhaka, and I studied in Dhaka. Here we have the term Dhakaia. You can say that I am 200 percent Dhakaia. I graduated from Dhaka University. I had training in management from Japan. My school was Sand & Grease High School and my colleges were Notre Dame & Dhaka College.
Q: So when did you start your career as a businessman?
SA: After my graduation, I started with a very renowned company. At first, I started on the marketing side, and then I became the country manager of the company. From there in the 1990s I started my own business. I started with a buying house and in 1999 I set up my own factory and now we have 3 factories. We are going mostly for tacks and buttons. Now our turnover is about 70-80 million dollars per year. We have some good customers like Kenneth Cole USA, COS Canada, ND Tex etc. In fact, right now my sons are running the show. They got educated from the UK and after completion of their degree, they came to Dhaka and joined my business, and now they are taking care of it. Right now we are going for a green factory. We are already certified by USGBC (United States Green Building Council), these are also platinum rated. With the compliance issue, I can tell you that we are leaving no stone unturned to make the compliance International standard; whatever we have to do, we are doing. We are also encouraging other people because nowadays it has become the survival of the fittest and if we cannot compete with the global market, we cannot sustain in business. So that is our main goal.
Q: We are aware that you are involved with many social activities. We would like to know something about that.
SA: I was the president of All Community Club Gulshan for 8 years. Now I have been elected as the Director of BGMEA for last the 3 consecutive years. Now I am the Vice President of BGMEA & I am mostly looking after foreign customers, buyer forum, diplomats, accord alliance, safety issues etc.
Q: The Rana Plaza collapse was a big incident in the RMG sector in our country. What are the steps BGMEA has taken after the accident to avoid this sort of catastrophes?
SA: I had personally been taking care from Day 1 of the Rana Plaza building collapse and we have reorganized BGMEA with the concept to avoid future tragedies like Rana Plaza which we can’t afford anymore. So we are preparing ourselves in the meantime. Out of 3500 factories, we found 32 factories vulnerable, which is a message to Bangladesh.
In BGMEA we have taken various steps after the Rana Plaza incident. Formerly BGMEA had 1 engineer but now after the Rana Plaza incident, we have 10 civil engineers. They are taking care of the company. Earlier if somebody came to BGMEA, if he had the documents of defined authority we used to give him membership. Right now we have our own visiting team, fire safety team and electricity team. They visit the factory and after they confirm everything is fine only then do we give the membership to new people. For safety issues, our tolerance is zero. We are working on regaining the image of our country which we lost a lot after the Rana Plaza incident. Wherever we go we have to always hear talk about Rana Plaza. They know this incident much better than the name of Bangladesh. So we are trying to represent our country in a good way. Last year we had a seminar with our stakeholders at Harvard University.
Q: What is the Vision of BGMEA now?
SA: Our theme is that we have to increase our industries’ sustainability. So now we are exporting worth $25 billion that is 82% of our total export. Our overall country export is worth $30 billion. In a short time, we hope to enhance our export to double: $50 billion within 2021. That is, $50 billion in the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh.
If all the stakeholders work together, it is not too difficult for us. We can build up luxury export in the world for the RMG sector. With this RMG sector, we are empowering women. 4.4 million people are working here out of which 80% are women. So it has given social dignity to women. Now they are the decision-makers, earlier they were not. In the family, she can make the decision whether to send her kids to school or not. She can afford herself. That is a revolution for our country. Close your eyes and think, if we didn’t have the RMG sector how many banks would have collapsed and how our tourism would suffer. All the people are somehow directly or indirectly involved with this sector. Because out of 30 billion dollars 25 billion is coming from here. So if we can get support from everybody we can achieve our target in 2021 on the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh. That is our target, for which we are working very hard. We are also going to attend a seminar in Harvard University. Last year I was also there with our commerce minister and in Harvard we had a stakeholders’ seminar. The ILO Based Forum had Congressmen, UN people, entrepreneurs etc. This is huge and we are going to contribute there. Last year we were also there to share our target with them on how we are developing our sector. Because the media always shows negative stories. We want to turn it around. If there is no political unrest, if we get the infrastructure and if the government is serious for it In Sha Allah we will achieve our goal. By 2021 our country is going to have 50 billion from this sector. That is our dream and we can make it.
Nowadays our people are working on their skill development. Because if we have a lot of training centers which I have seen in Vietnam, workers will come to the job after completing Diploma or whatever on this subject which we don’t have. We have 12 training centers on BGMEA, 12 health care centers, and schools for boys; it is the single largest sector in the world. You know how? There are 209 countries in the world, in more than 115 countries the population is less than 4.4 million. Now you can imagine. We have 4.4 million people working in this single sector.
Q: Are you facing any challenges? What kind of challenges are they and how can they be dealt with?
SA: Of course we have some barriers and challenges. You know last year we faced a lot of challenges. Rana Plaza, minimum wage, compared issues, accord, alliance – we had to handle a lot of things. In sha Allah in a very short time, we will prove that we can achieve more than what is expected. First of all, we have to brand our country and then our sector. As per indicators, by 2021 our goal is $50 million but it will be subject to 5 Ps: People, Port, Place, Power, and Politics. If we can overcome all these Ps, we can go a long way in sha Allah.
We have a lot of challenges. Our competitors are very jealous of us. But we have to keep our state untouched for which everybody has to work.
FM: Could you explain the 5 P’s?
SA: The first one is People. We have a vibrant workforce in our country within an age range of 18 to 40. We have regional entrepreneurs. So we have people. The second one is Place – which means safe workplace. Here we are struggling. So we are working on it. After Rana Plaza, the thinking of entrepreneurs has changed. Earlier they thought their company belonged to customer requirements; now they understand that there are pre-conditions to make an industry. We have to safeguard our workers and work place.
The next P is for Power or energy. We have to increase our energy infrastructures. Often we have limitations in our country. The power position is better than the energy level. Gas can explode. In the meantime, there will be new investors and we cannot make $50 billion worth of exports with such infrastructure. We have to develop simultaneously. We have given the road map to our government to challenge the barriers that we have been facing. They have to take care of it because we can’t do everything on our own. The government has to do its job and we have to do our job. We have to have a proper road from Dhaka to Chittagong. At present, a distance of 5 to 6 hours takes 18 to 20 hours to cover, which has to be cut down.
The next P stands for the port. We have to have a deep seaport as well as infrastructures. If we are going to have $50 billion worth of exports then we need to have infrastructures with good design plans to handle $50 billion worth of goods in the port. So we have to keep that in our mind.
Then there is Politics. This is the main problem for us. This year we had a goal of crossing 27 billion dollars. Unfortunately, we couldn’t. We have a lot of political turmoil for which our customers pull out their businesses from our country to competitive countries. You see the trend of Vietnam is going up rapidly. China was number 1 and we were number 2. We are concerned that Vietnam may cross us soon. So our urge to our politicians is that they look at our economy first then do their politics. First comes the country then their issues. They cannot use their platform for their own interest. Because we have to take care of the country’s interests first. If the economy is okay, whoever comes will be able to run everything smoothly. However, we are very much optimistic that we can meet our goal. You can ask how we can dream of 50 billion dollars of export. The market is the same for everybody but now for China, they have a 170 billion dollar domestic market. Their operation cost is growing higher and higher every day. They are moving to high-tech industries. We can shift to Bangladesh because they already have a ready market of 170 billion dollars. People today are using high technology in China. There is a mutual interest for both countries. They have to come to this deal because of their high technology. So we are also experiencing a new market. We are working for big countries like Russia, India, China, South Africa, which we are doing nicely.
Q: You had a very good educational background. What encouraged you to start your own business, as when you started it was very rare?
SA: When I started, it was like a new born baby. RMG sector was like that but now it has flourished unlike anything. We are competing with the world and there are challenges. I chose this side because I can make a lot of employment for people. One of my friends while I was in Canada told me you are living in Bangladesh, you can come over here and get a secure life. I told him that it was not my country. When I pay the 4000-5000 workers, their families are dependent on the job I gave them. 5000 families, not 5000 people. When I pay them the salary I become the happiest person in the world. You are earning for you and your family but I am earning for everybody. So it encouraged me to select this sector. You know comparing with this sector no other sector has developed this much. Our IT Sector is earning only 2 million dollars while in India they are earning 87 billion dollars. We have to flourish. It will be our weakness if we depend on only one sector. We don’t know what the condition may become in the coming days. So we have to raise the other sectors. We should work hard. Our government should work hard. We should diversify our businesses. There should be a platform for that. With the policy of government in this, people will be encouraged and come. We started our business in a very unplanned way. For 3/4 rooms we had 10 to 40 machines. It was called a garment factory. Now it is no more called garment factory, rather it’s a garment industry. For the industry whatever we need, we have everything. We have our own engineers, HR admin people, fire people, production people, industrial engineers etc. It has become a huge industry.
Q: What would your advice be for the entrepreneurs who want to come to this business?
SA: Earlier I used to ask the students who were doing MBA from IBA, even my child – where do you want to go? They always said Beximco. Because it was the only corporate house. But now a lot of MBA graduates from IBA are working for us. They are highly paid. One girl is also working for me from IBA. She is doing very good. She has travelled a lot of countries by this time. So there is nothing of frustration. Of course tele- communication sectors and other sectors are very good. But the way the students are coming everybody cannot be provided to those sectors. So they have to come to our sector. There are a lot of challenges. How many local people get salary in our sector, can you imagine! Some get 10,000 or more than 10,000 dollars every month. For what is everyone rushing for the USA? You can earn here. There is a good platform. You have to make yourself worthy.
For students, we have universities and great faculties. After graduating, they can do jobs in our country. You don’t have to go abroad. It doesn’t make any sense. They are educated in our country and serving other countries. My sons were educated abroad in the UK. Before sending them I gave them the condition that they would have to come back to our country. Otherwise, I was not going to send them. They kept their promise. We have to give a lot of things to our country. I am not working for me. If someone says that, that is an injustice to me. I am doing it for a bunch of people, a lot of people, and I have taught the same to my sons. At that time I had about 2000 workers. I told them if they can make it 10,000 workers then I can say they have done something in their life. They have increased it to 5000 workers till now. I hope within 2/3 years it will be 10,000 workers.
Q: There are so many young people who want to do garment business. Is that a good thing?
SA: The young are coming to this sector a lot. This is great; they are the next generation. Our kids – they are already educated and they are coming to this sector. They are taking it as a challenge. They can start a lot of in- novative things you know. Nowadays I don’t interfere much in my business because my sons are much more capable than me, with their innovative ideas and all. Whatever the world is doing they are doing in our company to make it grow faster. That is the way ahead.
