Local company to Invest $ 7.9m in Adamjee EPZ

http://www.theindependent-bd.com/details.php?nid=154263

Local company to Invest $ 7.9m in Adamjee EPZ
ECONOMIC REPORTER

Bangladeshi company Mis. Mikhail Plastopak Limited will set up a Rubber, Plastic, Papaer Products and Garments Accessories Manufacturing Industry in Adamjee Export Processing Zone.

This100 per cent local owned company will invest $ 7.893 million in setting up their unit and will produce Rubber, Plastic, Paper Products and Garments accessories Items. The company will also create employment opportunity for 596 Bangladeshi, says a press release.

An agreement to this effect was signed between the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority and the Mis. Mikhail Plastopak Limited in BEPZA Complex, Dhaka recently. Md. Moyjuddin Ahmed, member (Investment Promotion) of BEPZA and Md. Fahad Muneem Rahmatullah, managing director of Mis. Mikhail Plastopak Limited signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.

Plastic fair makes brisk business

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=123913

Plastic fair makes brisk business
Star Business Report

Participants in the sixth Dhaka International Plastic, Packaging and Printing Industrial Fair were satiated on the concluding day yesterday, as they received large volumes of spot sales and orders.

A total of 350 local and foreign firms took part in the fair.

Manufacturers and machinery importers received orders worth around Tk 500 crore, while many sold machinery essential to produce packaging materials for pharmaceuticals and garment factories.

At present, the country’s growing garment and pharmaceutical sectors are sourcing most packaging materials from local makers, one of the main drivers of the growing plastic market, said industry people.

They said the Tk 4,000 crore local market is growing at 20 percent a year. At present, local manufacturers are exporting plastic hangers, polybags and shopping bags.

Morshed Alam, managing director of Bengal Group of Industries, said the local market is growing fast, as the sector is becoming cost-effective and producing high quality products.

“The market was not big even 10-12 years back. But now local producers are able to meet the demand for packaging materials of the garment and pharmaceutical industries, ” he said.

Bengal Group of Industries, which holds nearly two thirds of the total market share, won the ‘Best Company Award’ at the fair.

Along with packaging materials and home appliances, the company recently began producing adhesive items.

Bangladesh Plastic Goods Manufacturers and Exporters Association and Chan Chao International Co Ltd jointly organised the four-day event at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka.

In addition to locally produced items, imported machinery was also popular at the show, as most importers received satisfactory sales and spot orders.

Saiful Islam, manager of Shazin Trade International, said his company sold 5 packaging machines worth Tk 18 lakh and received some more orders.

Abdur Rahim, managing director of Global Plastic which imports machinery to produce pet bottles, said they experienced brisk sales worth Tk 5 crore.

At the concluding ceremony, plastic goods manufacturers urged the government to relax the customs and bank guarantee rules, extend cash incentives and promptly establish a Plastic Industrial Park.

HT Imam, adviser to the prime minister, and Ferdous Wahed, president of the plastic makers’ association, also spoke.

Sudden spurt of foreign demand for local rubber

http://www.newagebd.com/2010/may/01/busi.html#1

Sudden spurt of foreign demand for local rubber
Shakhawat Hossain

Local rubber growers are having a good time as a growing number of international traders are looking for rubber in Bangladesh because of the current shortage of the item in the global market.

The Bangladesh Rubber Garden Owners Association’s general secretary, Harun-ur Rashid, told New Age on Thursday that businessmen from Turkey, Pakistan and India have come here looking for rubber.

Some growers have already shipped out around 1,200 tonnes of rubber in the last six months and many other orders have already been received. The global shortage and price-hike of rubber were forcing the international traders to treat Bangladesh as an alternative source, he added.

Growers said that a large number of foreign traders were looking for rubber here as its price in the local market was at least $1 lower per kg than that of current global price, which has soared in an unprecedented manner.

According to the London-based Financial Time, the price of natural rubber, the commodity used to make products ranging from tyres to condoms, has hit an all-time high [above $3.50 per kg] in the current month after a severe drought in Thailand, the world’s largest producer, curtailed supplies.

The price-hike of rubber has broken one of the longest standing price records in commodities, dating back to 1952, when fears about the potential spread of the Korean War to key South-East Asian rubber-producing countries triggered panic buying, added the Financial Time.

Besides the international shortage that has led to traders coming here, local consumption of rubber has also gone up substantially, elating the local growers, said a senior official of the Bangladesh Forest Industries Development Corporation. The BFIDC, the state-owned rubber plantation, cleared its stock-lot of 6,000 tonnes of rubber four months ago, though it has been facing difficulties in clearing its stock-lot since 2008, he added.

The rubber growers said that the country produces about 10,000 tonnes of rubber per year with BFIDC accounting for 60 per cent of the production. The other 40 per cent comes from the private growers who were permitted to plant rubber trees in the 1980s.

The country has attained self-sufficiency in rubber, which is mainly bought by footwear industries and tyre and tube producers.

Rubber has huge export potential, especially to India that imports nearly 1,00,000 tonnes of rubber to meet its internal demand of 10,00,000 tonnes annually.