Continuous yarn shortage on the local market may be the reason for Bangladesh losing its share of international knitwear market, fears a newly created forum in the knitwear sub-sector of the apparel industry.

Inaugurating a forum titled "Sammilito Knit Forum (SKF)", leaders censured the spinning millers for their inability to supply yarn to the knit industries that caused a delay in exporting finished products to the buyers.

Several foreign buyers were disappointed ordered goods were not supplied under committed deadlines on account of yarn shortages.

If the situation persists, most of them will not come again, lamented Hatem Shaheen, who leads the new forum.

If knit industry supplies necessary yarn in time, it could easily achieve 40-50 percent expansion. But since local spinning millers have created their monopoly and raised the yarn price exorbitantly, the industry is experiencing tough period, he said.

Further, the spinners failed to keep the deadline of yarn supply even after getting payments in advance, they claimed.

Even though there is a strong demand among international buyers, Bangladeshi spinners could not manufacture fashionable yarns such as PC, CVC, Melange, Polyester, Viscous, 100 per cent Cotton Melange, Blended Yarn etc. Thus, foreign buyers are left to exploring new suppliers from India and China as an alternative.

Fibre2fashion.com