Light engineering shows signs of strength
The country's light engineering sector is gradually emerging as an important source of machinery for many of the $30 billion export earning apparel-markers on the back of better quality and lower price.
Operators make machineries for washing, dyeing and finishing in the textile industry as well as film blowing machines, which are used to make polyethylene into plastic film.
Leading garment exporter Ha-Meem Group is one of the buyers of the locally made machines. The $500-million clothing exporter has recently bought a film blowing machine from Mafia Engineering Works, a local light machinery maker.
Ha-Meem paid Tk 40 lakh to Mafia Engineering for the machine, which would have cost the exporter Tk 6 crore had it been imported.
“In the past, we used to import this type of machine from Taiwan. But we are not looking to foreign suppliers now as we get almost the same machine at much lower cost,” said Monirul Islam, production manager of Sakib Poly Industry, a concern of Ha-Meem Group.
“What is noteworthy is that some local light machinery makers are using advanced technologies.”
Prior to making film blowing machine for Ha-meem, Mafia Engineering, located in the old part of the capital, also supplied DLPG film blowing machine to local conglomerates such as Pran-RFL, Square Pharmaceuticals, Akij Group, Meridian Foods, and Bengal Group, said Abul Kashem Titu, owner of Mafia Engineering.
DLPG film blowing machine is a very basic equipment for the garment industry. It manufactures poly roll used for wrapping denim and other finished products.
Some other light engineering factories are also making this type of machines for local industries, said Titu, who set up his workshop in 1998 with only Tk 50,000 in capital and a lathe machine to make his fortune in the sector that comprises thousands of small and informal operators.
Mafia Engineering has supplied six small-scale film blowing machines so far this year and has now orders to make eight such machines.
Titu is one of 40,000 light engineering product manufacturers who are catering to sectors such as agriculture, automobile, pharmaceuticals, food industries and ship-building, helping the country cut import dependence and costs.
Shankar Chandra Mondal, owner of Raja Engineering Works on Tipu Sultan Road in Old Dhaka, manufactures spare parts for textile machineries and different kinds of gears. He started the business in 1991 and can repair all kinds of textile machines. Raja Engineering Works also manufactures zipper plate and clamp manufacturing machines for the textiles sector, said Mondal.
Similarly, Monoranajan Modal, who also has a workshop on Tipu Sultan Road, manufactures patterns for machines used in car engines, saw mills and jute mills. He said profit is very limited and he has no scope to expand because of a lack of capital.
Md Abdur Razzaque, president of Bangladesh Engineering Industry Owners Association, said, “We are providing support to industrial, agricultural and construction sectors by manufacturing a wide range of spare parts, castings, moulds and dices, oil and gas pipeline fittings and light machinery. We also repair them.”
Electrical products like switch, socket, light shed, channel, cables and electrical fans, and generators manufactured by the light engineering sector now meet 48 to 52 percent of the country's demands, which were earlier met through imports, he said.
The market size of light engineering machinery and spare parts was about Tk 25,000 crore in 2017, Razzaque said. This is up from Tk 20,000 crore a decade ago.
The Business Promotion Council under the commerce ministry estimates that local light engineering industries produce 3,815 types of machinery, spares and accessories.
The Bangladesh Investment Develop-ment Authority said more than 90 percent of light engineering industries meet local demand. It lists the sector as one of the important areas for investment owing to its potential for both domestic and foreign markets.
A number of light engineering products are also exported either directly or via subcontracting. These include spare parts of paper and cement mills, bicycle, fancy light fitting, construction equipment, iron chain, cast iron article, carbon rod, and automobile spares, according to a paper of the Export Promotion Bureau.
According to the EPB, this newly emerging sector has witnessed exponential growth and contributed about 1.5 percent to the export earnings in the financial year that ended in June 2016. The EPB data showed that engineering products fetched $510.08 million in 2015-16.
Razzaque said modernisation is taking place in the sector. Use of computerised machinery is expanding gradually. “These advanced machines help increase productivity and quality,” he said.
He said the sector needs trainers to develop skilled workforce as well as the government's policy support to flourish, as its growth is very sluggish in absence of investment and government's support.
“The potential of the sector is immense, but it has remained untapped for years because of lack of support,” he said.
“Our mechanics with no academic qualification can manufacture almost everything riding on their quick learning skills. Training can improve their skills.”
Razzaque urged big business groups to invest in the sector so that it develops into high tech engineering.
Agrani Bank Chairman Zaid Bakht, who conducted research on the sector, said the sector has a bright future in Bangladesh and contributes to the industrial sector.
“The sector needs sophisticated technology for rapid growth and there is no scope to ignore it, as it contributes about 2 percent to the GDP,” he said.
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