Bangladesh’s readymade garment industry has forayed into a few new areas of late. The country has been exporting winter wear to West for around 30 years. Eighty per cent of the products made by the country's export-oriented apparel factories were for long limited to traditional items like blankets and sweaters generally made of cotton.

Germany tops the countries that import large volumes of winter clothes from Bangladesh. Others are Europe, the US and Australia. Suits and blazers are major exports. Manufacturers find them as highly promising value-added products. Apart from traditional readymade garment makers, specialised tailoring houses are now engaged in making suits and blazers for exports.

Still at a nascent stage, suit-blazer factories are at present dominated by five or six houses. One of them is capable of shipping readymade suits worth $26 million a year. It aims to export suits and blazers worth $100 million by 2021. Orders from industrialised countries like the UK, the US, Japan and Germany continue to pour in.

Great prospects notwithstanding suit manufacturing sector is plagued by a lot of drawbacks. The most glaring is the lack of skilled hands and required technology.