‘Exporting environment-friendly goods can boost forex reserves’

By making environment-friendly products and exporting those abroad, we can strengthen our foreign exchange reserve, said Obaidul Haque Rasel, this year’s best male Small Entrepreneur Award winner.

In an interview with The Business post, the young star said that the government should pay special attention to environment-friendly jute-based products and help entrepreneurs and exporters to take the golden fibre across the globe using foreign embassy offices.

Born in a business family, Obaidul Haque Rasel intended to be a businessman since his childhood. After completing his BBA, he started a ready-made garment (RMG) accessories business in 2013 with only Tk 3,000 he got from his mother.

At first, he got an order for 3,000-foot will tape which cost Tk 7, 000. He gave the Tk 3,000 to the wholesaler and the remaining Tk 4,000 was due.

“My sister gave me Tk 1 lakh but she did not expect to get the money back. When I returned the money, I got another Tk 6 lakh from her,” said Rasel.

In 2016, Rasel started an RMG accessories business along with his two friends.

“The working capital of our company was Tk 10 lakh of which Tk 7.5 lakh was mine,” said Rasel.

His brand Amass Footwear Limited produces versatile jute footwear which is cent per cent export-oriented. He exported his products to France, German, Italy, Denmark, Spain, the USA, South Africa, Korea, China, India and many other countries.

Currently, there are more than 110 permanent workers at his factory in Jhenaidah and around 500 women are working temporarily in villages. The annual turnover of his company is over Tk 10 crore.

When asked what kind of challenges entrepreneurs face, Rasel said, “Actually, it is very difficult to get buyers as an entrepreneur, most of the new entrepreneurs are forced to stop their factory operations due to the lack of buyers after some time.”

“Every foreign embassy office of the government may take an initiative to introduce jute-based products to foreign buyers, so the entrepreneurs can easily get their expected buyers,” he said.

The young entrepreneur said that getting licenses and approvals is very difficult in Bangladesh which should be easier for creating more entrepreneurs for the sake of a sound and robust economy.

For trading an export-oriented product, an entrepreneur has to take many licences and approvals from the Export Promotion Bureau, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, organisational authorities, banks and many others.

If the work could be done by a single government agency, it may save time and money for both the government and the entrepreneur, said Rasel.

“When I visited European countries, I saw that a good number of Indians are selling jute-based products as Indian products which they had bought from Bangladeshi entrepreneurs,” he said.

“They are making more profit than us by working as a middle man which is very frustrating for the entrepreneurs,” he added.