Woven textile mills of Bangladesh meet only 35 per cent of the thread and yarns required by the booming garment sector. This means, 65 per cent of the requirements have to be met by imports, draining out a huge amount of hard earned foreign currency. Woven textile mills are suffering due to a lack of investment and policy support. Investments in this sector are not happening as business people see spinning as safer than weaving. The power crisis is a major barrier for investment in weaving. Captive power generators do not get new licenses and gas prices have doubled.

Capital machinery imports into Bangladesh in the fiscal year 2014-15 increased by 40.6 per cent over the corresponding period of financial year ’14. Woven textile mills in the country are manufacturing high technology based fabrics with state of the art machinery. But the readymade garment sector has to spend billions of dollars to import natural and cotton fabrics from China, India, Korea and from other countries.

There is certainly a market for woven fabrics in Bangladesh but the investment is not happening. The country has an aim of exporting garments worth 50 billion dollars by the year 2021.