Immense potential largely untapped

The huge potential of the country’s printing and packaging industry, which experienced steady growth during the last decade, is still untapped due to inadequate government support, said entrepreneurs from the sector.

They said Bangladeshi printing houses are now bagging supply orders competing with international bidders like China, India, Korea, and Malaysia. But, despite achieving the global standard, the export of printing goods has not increased proportionally.

If the government provides tax incentives to import raw materials, like the readymade garment sector, export earnings from the printing industry will increase manifold, they hope.

Industry insiders say as a result of various initiatives undertaken mostly by the private entrepreneurs, the sector now produces printing products worth around Tk 4,000 crore annually, including Tk 160 crore worth of materials for foreign markets.

Entrepreneurs said there is a huge potential for expanding the export market of the sector as the global printing products market is worth $2 trillion.

They said there are around 7,000 printing houses in the country. And at least 2,000 printing houses are capable of competing with foreign ones. Around 12-15 lakh people including entrepreneurs and workers are now directly or indirectly involved with the sector.

According to the Printing Industries Association of Bangladesh (PIAB), the industry is now capable of printing quality printing items including books and all sorts of packaging accessories for the garment sector as various state-of-the-art technologies have been introduced during the last decade.

At present, the industry prints all of the 36 crore textbooks published by the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) for the students of primary and secondary levels every year.

Besides, the industry also prints a wide range of reference books of different disciplines, religious books, literary books, magazines and periodicals, newspapers, calendars, diaries, greeting cards, and notebooks for different public and private business entities.

Apart from this, price tags and all sorts of packaging accessories for the garment sector, medicine boxes for pharmaceutical companies and packets for frozen foods are also printed.

PIAB chairman Shahid Serneabat, also the proprietor of Sanjana Printers, told The Business Post, “We have no crisis of investment in the sector, but the entrepreneurs face a crisis of place to set up their presses. Many are forced to set up the press in residential areas which becomes a problem to the neighbourhood.”

“We can contribute more to the national economy if the government establishes a dedicated industrial estate for the sector. We do not need money; we just want a piece of land to run our business,” he said, claiming that it will surely pave the way to further expansion of the sector’s export basket.

“At present, the annual turnover of the industry is Tk 12,000 crore while its indirect contribution to the country’s export is 6 per cent. The sector’s export earnings will increase by several times if proper cooperation is provided by the government,” hoped Shahid Serneabat.

“We can print 100 crore high-quality books annually. We are now printing standard products which earlier were printed in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia,” he said, adding, “Even, we are now getting work orders competing with international bidders like China, India, Korea, and Malaysia.”

Potentiality of printing sector

Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) Vice-President Amin Helali told The Business Post that the printing and packaging sector shares 15 per cent of the production cost of each product because 15 per cent of the total production cost is spent on packaging.

“At present, Bangladesh annually exports products worth $50 billion where the printing industry is contributing $7.5 billion directly, considering the 15 per cent packaging cost of the products,” he said.

“If Bangladesh can grab only one per cent of the $2 trillion global printing and packaging market, the sector’s export basket will expand to $20 billion. Even there is the possibility of overcoming RMG sector, the country’s biggest export earning sector if we can meet two per cent demand of the global printing market,” the FBCCI leader said.

Observing that there is no way to increase exports without government patronisation, he said the government is not well-informed about the sector’s potential.

Former PIAB president Tofayal Khan told The Business Post that the printing industry has a great potential to become a major export-earning sector, like the ready-made garment sector, by securing a strong position in the global market.

Demanding government incentives to import of raw materials for the printing sector, he said, “We are now printing world-class products using state-of-the-art machinery. The sector will boost enormously if the government provides the incentive to import raw materials.”

Printing press owners said as an LDC country Bangladesh has duty-free access to the global market for printing materials and this advantage, if properly utilised, can pave the way to a massive growth of the country’s printing industry.

They think the industry is now capable to ensure the quality of the product as per the requirements of the global buyers.

Printing hub in Munshiganj 

The Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) is going to establish a printing park at Sirajdikhan of Munshiganj. 

According to BSCIC, some 299 printing industries will get the opportunity to set up their factories there, creating employment for around 200,000 people.   

ECNEC initially approved the project on March 29, 2016, and it was supposed to be implemented within 2018. But ECNEC deferred the deadline thrice and the project was supposed to be completed within December 2020. Finally, in late 2021, BSCIC got 100 acres of land from the Munshiganj administration.

Six years after the primary approval, the project is now set to be implemented with almost double the budget. 

The BSCIC sent a revised plan to ECNEC early this year with a Tk264.55 crore budget, over 90% of its initial budget of Tk138.70 crore. They also proposed a new deadline for ending the project in December 2024. 

Printing sector needs skilled manpower

The printing industry of Bangladesh has been flourishing on its own for more than a century without much support from institutionally educated people.

The workers and employees lack adequate skills and need appropriate training and academic learning to produce high-quality products at a faster pace.

The industry needs highly trained and academically qualified people as most of the workers are self-trained rendering services for years.

However, there is a scarcity of educational institutions in Bangladesh which can produce qualified and skilled human resources for the sector.

The Graphic Arts Institute at Mohammadpur offers a four-year Diploma in Engineering in Print programme while the Department of Printing and Publication Studies has been launched at the University of Dhaka in 2015.