Stationery market in growth mode

Local stationery industry is gradually scaling the heights, showing a clear sign of an organised growth driven by the tremendous demand for academic and office stationery items.

The industry is largely predicated on the functioning of academia and the corporate complementing one another.

When it comes to apportioning the percentage of stationery products, the school stationery captures the bulk of the market while corporate sector is also doing its part.

According to sources, local manufacturers produce a bevy of nearly 500 different items and are laying hands on more market share. Currently, stationery business witnesses an annual growth of 15 per cent.

Around 35 per cent domestic demand is met by the home-grown products, while the rest are imported.

Just a decade back, Bangladesh used to churn out only pen and note book for students in a limited scale while now it has turned to making export.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data, ball pen worth $95,014 were exported in Fiscal Year 2020-21.

The overseas market destinations include America, UK, Germany, The Netherlands, South Africa, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Azerbaijan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

Local stationery makers say they are providing quality products at a cheap rate compared to their global competitors, and thus are trying to seize the local market from the clutch of foreign products.

Currently, imports are made from a host of countries including China, India, Germany, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore.

The business insiders estimated that the current market size is Tk 1700 crore in which home products hold a value of Tk 600 crore and foreign brands Tk 1100 crore.

The locally made stationery items include exercise book, note book, pen, pencil, scale, duster, eraser, sharpener, pencil box, geometry box, ruler, colour pencil, marker, rehal and file for academic purposes while the key office supplies are anti-cutter, binder clip, stapler, ID cardholder, scissor, stale pin, sponge damper, stamp pad, staple remover, tap dispenser, punch, visiting cardholder and desk organiser.

The key market players are Matador Stationery, Matador Group, Good Luck Stationery, PRAN-RFL Group, Fresh Stationery, Meghna Group, S Alam Stationery, S Alam Group while many are keen to invest in the sector as the demand remains steady all the year round.

Matador Group Deputy General Manager Tanvir Ahamed said they are supplying 128 items both for local and global markets.

“Our export destinations are South Africa, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Azerbaijan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, USA, UK and Germany with the help of a third party,” said the top executive.

The company sells stationery items mostly pen, pencil, file, scale, eraser worth Tk 300 crore to Tk 320 crore annually in the local market. It exported products worth around Tk 8.5 crore in 2019.

S Alam Stationery’s Marketing Manager Md Nahid Hossain described that they came up with multiple types of products with innovations to compete with the uniqueness of their imported peers.

“Now we have 50 types of pencil box and 20 types of scale in local market. We have Tk 70 crore annual turnover from only pencil box and scale. Local manufactures are dominating over the sale of exercise book, pen, pencil box, scale and file,” added Nahid.

Allegations had it that some unscrupulous businessmen are saturating the market with local products and selling them out in the name of “made in China”.

The market is flooded with home-made exercise book, pen, file and scale which are sufficient to meet domestic demand. The sector people said import dependency will massively decline if the government provides them with loan on easy terms.

Challenges facing local manufactures

Local companies are producing a handful of stationery items while nearly 10,000 such items are available in the domestic market.

On the other hand, importers claim that products brought from abroad maintain quality compared to local ones while their price is also less after duty.

Mortuza Stationery proprietor Mohammad Jamir Uddin, also an importer at Chawk Mogoltuly, said nearly 100 importers bring school and office stationery items worth nearly Tk 1000 crore mostly from China.

The local variety, he adds, is less in quality than that imported, and also it is not of many types as are foreign items and so people prefer imported products to local ones.

“We need to improve quality and product diversification to fight with the global market,” suggested the businessman.

According to Md Ramjan Ali, manager of M/S Rahman and Brothers, local producers need to bring variety to stationery items to survive the competition, plus they have to make sure that the items sell at an affordable price.

Stationery business status after school reopening

The Covid-19 pandemic hit stationery business hard as educational institutions were shut for nearly one and a half years.

The business started to turn around following the reopening of academia, but the business people said it would take several years to recover the loss.

Abdullah Al Mamun, co-coordinator of Modern Stationery at New Market, asserted that they used to sell Tk 5 lakh monthly which dropped to 80 percent due to the pandemic.

The business started to recover after schools reopened, but it fails to gather pace since classes are not held regularly in full swing, observed Mamun.

Corporate sector keeps up steady demand

The corporate sector plays a key role in spurring the growth of the stationery market as business is more or less in operation.

The businessmen said stationery business witnesses an annual growth of 15 per cent; as the corporate sector is rising, so is the demand for stationery products.

Price hike after business reopens

Compared to the pre-pandemic period, the stationery products see a surge in price.

The importers attribute the hike to the rise in price by 15-20 per cent in international market that leaves an impact locally.

“We have to sell products at a higher price in the wake of rising price in global market,” reasoned out Md Rubel, a staff of Mortuza Stationery.

Some alleged that the price is artificially hiked as local businesses are too much mercenary.