The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Chairman of JCPenney Purchasing Organisation Peter McGarth said BEXTEX's flexible, vertical manufacturing facilities and progressive corporate culture made Beximco's operation unique in South Asia, and presented tremendous opportunities to major retailers like JCP to rapidly increase their sourcing volumes from Bangladesh.

Peter's remark came while he and his top-level delegation visiting Beximco Industrial Park yesterday. Other members of the delegation include Vice President Strategic Sourcing Janet Fox, Director Sourcing Steve Bohman, a, Regional Director Jackie Nixon and Director Adil Raza.

They visited BEXTEX's extensive design and product development facilities and were very impressed with the new fabric and apparel collections developed for the Autumn/Winter 2008 season as well as Spring/Summer 2009 seasons.

Syed Naved Husain, CEO and Group Director BEXTEX informed Peter McGarth that due to fantastic needlework skills developed over the last 30 years, and tremendous investments made in spinning, knitting, denim and woven fabrics in recent years, Bangladesh was well positioned to become a world leader in fashion apparel exports.

Already, Bangladesh was the largest exporter of denim apparel to EU, and all other categories had this year shown significant growth. Beximco was increasing fabric capacity by a million yards a month by June 2008, and also doubling its apparel production by 2009.

Beximco shirting made with double mercerised compact yarns, and double faced fabric technology were comparable to high end Italian fabrics. In denims, Beximco's focus was on specialized tencels, yarn dyed patterns and special finished fabrics. Beximco R&D had commenced working in collaboration with EU centres of excellence in the area of bulletproof fabric and vests.

JCP delegation also visited Shinepukur's Ceramics and Bone China facilities. Syed Naved Husain informed them that Shinepukur's fine ceramics and bone china crockery was supplied to top customers including Royal Doulton, Wedgewood, Royal Albert and Richard Ginori. JC Penney showed strong interest to buy crockery from Shinepukur.