Ha-Meem Group has 39 business concerns in various sectors, mainly textile, garment, media and tea, with an annual turnover of $966 million

Ha-Meem Group, one of the top textile and garment manufacturers in Bangladesh, is eyeing massive expansion to export $1 billion worth of apparel items by 2024, said its owner.

In order to attain the target, the group has been expanding its business for the last few years and is going to set up a denim mill and a spinning factory in the next one year.

The group is establishing the new denim factory with an investment of $100 million in Tangail to produce five million yards of denim fabrics per month.

Its existing denim mill produces five million yards of fabrics, of which 40 per cent is consumed by the group and the remainder is sold to other garment factories.

The new spinning mill will make woven fabrics for the group's own garment factories as well for other apparel manufacturers in the country.

"Production at both denim and spinning mills will start next year," said AK Azad, chairman and chief executive officer of Ha-Meem, during an interview recently.

The entrepreneur started business in 1984 with a small factory in Dhaka's Motijheel with 57 machines after graduating from the University of Dhaka.

Today, Ha-Meem Group has 39 business concerns in various sectors, mainly textile, garment, media and tea, with an annual turnover of $966 million.

The group employs more than 65,000 workers, mostly at its textile and garment units. Another 10,000 workers will be recruited soon for the garment and textile sectors, said Azad, a former president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce & Industry.

In 2021, Ha-Meem exported garment items worth $580 million and another $200 million worth of denim and woven fabrics were sold in the local markets. The local sales are considered deemed exports.

Rifat Garments, a unit of the group, has been the biggest exporter of woven fabrics since the fiscal year of 2011-12. It won the gold trophy from the government for the fiscal year 2017-18 after racking up $172 million through the shipment of woven items. It has also been one of the top taxpayers among garment factories.

Speaking about his investment plan in the denim segment, Azad said denim fabrics have a lot of demand from garment manufacturers, and his denim factory is always overbooked with orders from international buyers.

The move from the group comes as Bangladesh has to import a lot of denim fabrics from China and Pakistan every year to meet the demand from local factories.

The country will need more denim fabrics since orders are shifting from China as international clothing retailers and brands are cutting their reliance on the world's largest supplier of apparel items.

During the interview, he also talked about the risk facing garment exporters owing to the Russia-Ukraine war and the soaring prices of raw materials and freight costs.

The conflict has dealt a fresh blow to the global clothing supply chain, which has already been severely affected by the fallout of Covid-19.

"If the war prolongs, the garment export may come under pressure as European consumers will face more inflationary pressure and may cut consumption. This may hit the global clothing supply chain and our garment industry," said Azad.

Ha-Meem Group exports 95 per cent of garment items to the US and the rest to Europe.

Currently, high-end garments fetch about $500,000 a year for the group. And the industrialist plans to concentrate on improving productivity and efficiency after 2024 with a view to making the group's businesses more sustainable.