RMG sector comes under digital mapping

The ready-made garment (RMG) sector has been brought under the digital mapping system, which will provide credible data of the factories, a Commerce Ministry official said.

Commerce minister Tipu Munshi inaugurates the project at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) tomorrow (Saturday).

The digitisation at the apparel sector is being implemented under the 'Mapped in Bangladesh (MiB)' project, which was previously known as Digital RMG Factory Mapping in Bangladesh (DRFM-B).

The digital mapping will establish transparency, credibility and accountability in the garment sector.

It is expected to remove the misconceptions about the sector at the national and international levels.

A high official of the ministry of commerce, who is involved in the project, told the FE the mapping under the project is being developed modelled after Google Maps.

It will provide credible and industry-wide data on all the RMG factories in Bangladesh, he said.

He said that a person from any corner of the world would be able to access factory data when needed and analyse those accordingly.

In case of emergency, the map contains data on nearby hospitals and fire-service stations.

The BGMEA, Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (CED) of BRAC University and C&A Foundation are jointly implementing the project.

The move came under pressure from the global buyers who demanded more transparency of the factories.

In the last couple of years, global retailers adopted go-slow policy in placing orders due to the ongoing safety inspections in the apparel sector.

But in the last fiscal, they changed their mindset as the inspection has almost been concluded.

The country's apparel sector employs around four million workers, mostly rural women.

The project will help the country fetch $ 50 billion in garment exports by 2021.

The sector contributed around 84 per cent to the country's total exports of US $36.66 billion last fiscal.

Bangladesh's export income from the apparel sector recorded an 8.76 per cent growth reaching $30.61 billion in FY18, helped by the safety improvement in the sector.

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