Beximco textile factory visit

The British High Commission organized a visit to Beximco, the biggest private company in Bangladesh. (I think BRAC is bigger, but that is an NGO, the biggest NGO in the world)

An uneventful two hour drive from Dhaka. It is actually the same place where we went some weeks ago to visit Shinepukur. Not a surprise as it is part of the same company.

The CEO is a nice man, talks a lot, but seems to know what he wants. He understands that waste reducing is not just good for the environment, but also for his wallet. Surprisingly he argued that the recent raise in minimum wage was too little, the production costs are just a fraction of the costs of the retailers. He highly believes in cost cutting through waste reduction and energy effecient work.

Shall we tell that Michael Kors customers that their shirts are made in the same factory as the Primark shirts?

He seemed to be correcting the machine with a big stick. The simple tools always work best.

The cotton comes from all over the world, so this pile could well be from Burkina Faso.

It's all very clean, but the noise is deafening.

Very warm here, probably due to the big machines and lack of airconditioning.

Making shirts for the Dutch kingsday?

Amidst these huge maching the man with a sewing machine seems lost. I think he was marking or testing.

Scary strange machine. A bit of black blood comes out? No idea what it does, timetravel?

The warping room, it indeed looks like something out of Startrek.

Green is the new black next season.

Danger, danger, high voltage!
At least the skull laughs.

Machine is being set up, the roll will go down and dip the fabric in the white starch.

Ready, steady...

Weaving.

Marking a start or end.

I love these multi purpose bikes. Loose seats make it either people or goods transport.

They run a project to make shirts out of rejected shirts. Very labour intensive, but Europeans pay good money for it.

Notice the detachable sleeves. The sunglasses make him cool.

I don't think the gym is for everyone, probably just management.

How many companies have their own mini zoo?

Lunch.

The production line, here the sheets of fabric will become a shirt.



All in all it was a well organised visit and we were made to feel welcome. You never get a full picture but speaking to other people we understand it is a relatively good employer with high standards and good secundairy working conditions. We did get the impression it was clean and organised. The employees didn't look depressed. Even though the conditions are relatively good, the noise in certain part was deafening. After the visit I was slightly more optimistic about the changes for Bangladesh. Although low labour costs is not a long term advantage, it can be used short term as long as the factories keep improving on efficiency and costs reduction; only then they can be long term competative. A good day out.