Power and gas rates in Bangladesh has hurt the textile business. Muscat Thread Mills, an Oman-based sewing thread manufacturer, has pulled the plug on its plans of setting up a spinning unit as it was unable to find an ‘economical source of fuel to run its operations’. Bangladesh is a virile and a relatively unexplored market for spinners as the country has negligible production capacities of natural and synthetic fibres, owing to which only a few Bangladeshi apparel and textile giants of the country have tested the waters in the denim spinning territory.
On its expansion plans, MTM said, in 2012, that Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for the garment industry. Keen on capitalising on the opportunity, in 2012, Muscat Thread Mills had decided to invest US $ 4.6 million in a five-tonnes-per-day facility in Bangladesh.
Four years hence, Muscat Thread Mills in a filing with the Muscat Securities Market said, “The board of directors have decided not to proceed with the proposed plant in Bangladesh, as the company could not get economical source of fuel to run its operations.” The company posits that the pull-out will result in negative impact worth US $ 0.27 million in the coming year.
The facility in the South Asian nation was envisaged to be of a scale similar to that of Muscat Thread Mills Rusayl unit, near Muscat.