LGRD and Co-operative Minister Syed Ashraful Islam, MP, is expected to inaugurate the exposition styled ‘9th Chittagong Apparel Fabric and Accessories Exposition (CAFAXPO)’ at 11:00am in the morning.

A total of 32 participants from the areas of knitwear, woven, accessories, yearn and equipment will showcase their products and services through 55 stalls, M Nasir Uddin Chowdhury, first vice-president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), said at a press conference in the port city yesterday.

At the news briefing, he said the size of global apparel and fabric market is US$ 400 billion where Bangladesh’s slice is only four percent. The global clothing market is also showing 10.92 per cent annual increment, said the first-vice president of BGMEA, the fair organiser.

Keeping the global recession behind, buyers are now shifting to Bangladesh from China for low cost products, he said.

Bangladesh is expanding its export markets in Japan, India, Turkey and Latin American countries also while in the past the country was dependent only on the American and European countries for RMG export, the press conference was told.

Now Bangladesh is the third largest RMG products supplier in the global market as well as the United States, he informed adding that the fair would play a very important role to expand the country’s export destinations.

Apparel export from Bangladesh to the European Union countries amounted to $ 7.20 billion in the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

With rules of origin relaxed by the EU from January 2011 and China and South Korea providing duty-free access to Bangladeshi garment products, export of local apparel products is likely to increase further, observed Nasir Uddin.

Growth in RMG export, which was 43 per cent in the first six months of the current fiscal year, stood at 73.11 per cent in January, he said.

He referred that both local and foreign investments in Chittagong marked a rise and put up a nine-point recommendation to streamline infrastructural development and administrative decentralisation to help retain the increasing investment flow.

The recommendations include speeding up the process of the construction of flyovers and upgrading Dhaka-Chittagong highway as a four-lane one to ensure smooth traffic movement, providing new gas connections and ensuring uninterrupted power supply to industrial units, construction of international standard hotels and development of tourist spots.

Chittagong City Corporation Mayor M Monjur Alam, also the chairman of the fair, Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Jute and Textile Ministry, will also present at the inaugural function at 11pm.

The three-day fair will remain open for the visitors from 10am to 7.30 pm everyday.

A total of three seminars titled ‘Branding Bangladesh’, ‘Access to New and Emerging RMG Market’ and ‘A CSR Guide for BGMEA Entrepreneurs and Factory Managers’ will also be held in the sideline of the fair.