Power, gas crisis bites key industries

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
As manufacturing units across the country are hobbled by a nationwide power and gas crisis, industry leaders have urged the government to take immediate remedial actions to keep national economy afloat.
The ongoing energy crisis has badly affected Bangladesh’s vital apparel and textile industries by lowering production and escalating output cost.
Besides, other industries, including steel, cement and ceramic are also facing massive production loss due to supply shortage of gas and electricity as dwindling foreign exchange reserve hampers energy imports.
“Apparel manufacturing units have been facing power cuts of six to ten hours on a daily basis. The prolonged load-shedding is badly affecting factory production. In addition to load-shedding, the industrial units are also facing low gas pressure. If such situation continues, many apparel units would face closure and it would result in massive unemployment and labour unrest,” Faruque Hassan, President of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told The New Nation on Saturday.
During load-shedding, he said, factories have to be kept operative with diesel powered generators. As a result, the cost of production is going up by 50-60 per cent.
The BGMEA leader feared that Bangladesh’s apparel exports would dip drastically in the months to come as the manufacturers are not able to export the products on time due to disruption in production caused by power and gas crises.
Bangladesh is the world’s second biggest exporter of ready-made garments and the country earned $42.6 billion from exports of apparel products in the fiscal year 2021-22.
The ongoing power crisis also hits the country’s textile industry hard. The industry owners have complained of power cuts of 12 to 16 hours daily and low gas pressure causing drastic fall of production.
“Textile mills are on the brink of closure due to severe electricity load-shedding and supply crunch of gas,” Mohammad Ali Khokon, President of Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA), told The New Nation yesterday, adding that the ongoing power and gas crisis is making huge production losses and badly affecting the capacity of the industry.
 “Due to load-shedding, mills owners use alternative source of power like generators which escalate their cost of production further. We do not see a quick fix to the energy crisis. This will negatively impact the country’s apparel exports. As a result, industry owners will face trouble to repay the bank loans,” he added.
He, however, called upon the government to take urgent measures to resolve the ongoing energy crisis for the betterment of national economy.
“The country’s ceramic industries continue to suffer as energy crisis intensifies,” Abdul Hakim Sumon, Director of Bangladesh Ceramic Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BCMEA), told this daily.
He said that the production in ceramic industries has decreased by 50 per cent due to supply shortage of gas. “It is a gas-based industry …it is not possible to run with other fuels. We met the government policy-makers to have a guideline on how to run our industries if there is no gas supply. But we have not got any guidelines from them. If the situation continues, our factories have to be closed and then there will be no other option but to lay off workers,” he added.
Sumon also said that ceramic industry owners are counting huge losses every day due to lowering production. “We will become bankrupt very soon as our production becomes unsustainable due to the persisting energy crisis.”  
He also urged the government to ensure gas supply to the export-oriented ceramic manufacturing units to save the potential industrial sector from being collapsed.
There are more than 70 ceramic factories in the country. The total investment, both local and foreign, in this sector is about $1.58 billion.