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Apparel makers to choose steel buildings to relocate plants

Suman Saha
Garment makers plan to use locally-assembled steel structure for relocating their faulty factories to purpose-made buildings, which may propel growth in the steel building industry.
"We will set up the factories with support from local steel building makers," said Shahidullah Azim, vice president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
Factory owners will import necessary raw materials, and steel building makers will set up the factories, if the government waives duties on the import of the prefabricated buildingmaterials, hesaid.
It has been an urgent need to relocate the factories housed in shared buildings as many retailers are pulling out work orders from factories with poor safety standards, said Azim.
After the Rana Plaza collapse, international retailers have so far withdrawn more than $150 million of orders from different factories, hesaid.
Garment makers use three types of buildings: converted, shared and purpose-built.
Of the 3,600 garment factories now in operation in Bangladesh, 45 percent are housed in shared and converted buildings employing around 15 lakh people; the rest operate in purpose-made buildings, according to Azim.
Apparel makers want to use the steel buildings to set up their factories, as they are easy to build within the shortest possible time and ensure quality at the same time, said HM Jahidul Islam, general secretary of Steel Building Manufacturers Association of Bangladesh.
The government currently imposes up
to 61 percent duty on imports of prefabricated building materials.
Garment makers will be able to save the relocation costs by 50 percent if the government waived the duty, said Islam, also the managing director of ALM Steel Building Technology.
The construction cost of such building will decline by a half to Tk 350 a square foot, if the government waives the full duty, hesaid.
It requires a year to build a 90,000-100,000 square feet building, while a steel building can be made only in two months, hesaid.
A prefabricated steel structure is now used for settingup factories, multi-storey buildings, powerplants andbridges.
Setting up such steel-structured buildings began in Bangladesh in 1985. Initially, the structures and components were being imported.
In 2001, local entrepreneurs first took the initiative to set up steel buildings locally, and around 70 companies are now involved in such businesses, accord-ingto the industry insiders.
The sector has so far invested more than Tk 1,000 crore, employing around two lakh people directly and indirectly, including 2,000 engineers, Islam said.
Presently, the annual demand for prefabricated steel buildings in Bangladesh is around Tk 2,000 crore, which has been growing at more than 35 percent for the last several years.
Prefabricated buildings consist of several factory-built components or units that are assembled on-site to complete the unit.
Hot-rolled MS plate CR coil and colour coil are the key raw materials of the steel buildings and these are mainly imported from Korea, Japan and China, Islam said.