BGMEA President Faruque Hassan has stressed the need for creating easily-accessible fund and due diligence for the RMG industry, especially SMEs to support in making transition towards green growth.

“The RMG industry of Bangladesh has made significant progress in the area of environmental sustainability, and we have the highest number of green garment factories in the world. Moreover, the industry has continued its efforts to pursue excellence by embracing circularity, sustainable practices and making production process cleaner and more energy efficient,” he said.

“While we are committed to make strides towards reducing the emission of the industry, accessing green finance comes as an major area of concerns, especially the SME’s are not being able to access to the available green finances avenues like GTF (Green Transformation Fund), SREUP of AFD, and upcoming GCF (Green Climate Fund).

But SMEs are mostly in need of low-cost fund as they often cannot avail regular financing schemes due to stringent due diligence, he added.

Faruque Hassan made the remarks while addressing a national dialogue on green transition organized by Oxfam in Dhaka on February 28.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP, Chairman, Parliamentary standing committee on the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, attended the event as chief guest.

Oxfam initiated the multi-stakeholder national dialogue with relevant government, RMG owners and professionals, policy experts, energy experts, CSO’s, climate justice experts and development partners. 

The key objective of the dialogue is to create a civic space that can support to find a tangible financial mechanism and just transition in the apparel sector of Bangladesh. 

In his address BGMEA President Faruque Hassan said BGMEA had been working with the government and other stakeholders for capacity development of BGMEA member factories on energy efficiency and renewable energy while providing easy access to information on rooftop solar project implementation, facilitating garment industries to avail low-cost green finance, and jointly promote the industries working towards sustainability.

BGMEA announced its Sustainable Strategic Vision- 2030 to pursue the RMG industry growth in a sustainable manner, he added.