Online Desk: The biennial election to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) will be held on March 9 next year.

The apex trade body of the country’s largest forex earning apparel sector, BGMEA will elect a new board of directors for 35 posts for the 2024-26 term.

The election board declared the election schedule on December 19.

Earlier on December 04, the BGMEA board of directors at a meeting formed a three-member election board headed by Jahangir Alamin, former president of Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA).

The rest two members are Shomi Kaiser, vice-president of the FBCCI and president of e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) and ASM Nayeem, former president of e-CAB.

It also formed an election appellate board comprising three members in line with the Trade Organisation Rules 1994 and Articles of Association of the BGMEA.

Headed by Kamran T Rahman, president of MCCI, the election appellate board is comprised of FBCCI vice-president Khairul Huda Chopol and director Nizamuddin Rajesh.

According to the schedule, preliminary voter list will be published on January 18 while the final one will be brought out on January 30, 2024.

Candidates can submit nomination papers until 12 noon on February 03 while the deadline for withdrawal of the same is 2.0pm on February 07.

List of the valid candidates would be published on February 06 and the final one on February 08.

Voting will take place from 10am to 5pm at the trade body’s Dhaka and Chattogram offices simultaneously on March 09 and the results will be published on the same day after the ballot counting ends.

The election board will publish the final results on March 28 and the new board will take over charge on April 09.

The biennial election to the BGMEA board for the 2021-23 tenure was held on April 4, 2021 and office-bearers were elected on April 12, 2021.

The tenure of the current board was supposed to end on April 12 this year but the government extended it by one year in two phases.

On April 13, the commerce ministry extended the board’s tenure for six months up to October 12 in response to a request of the board.

Later, the ministry once again extended the tenure by an additional six months until April 12, 2024.

The BGMEA started journey with only 12 members in early 1980’s and currently it has around 4,500 members.

Some 40 per cent of the BGMEA member factories are knitwear and sweater manufactures, and the rest 60 per cent are woven garment manufactures.

According to the BGMEA, its member factories account for 100 per cent woven garment exports of the country and more than 95 per cent of sweater exports, while around half of the light knitwear exports are made by them.

Bangladesh’s RMG exports fetched US$46.99 billion in the last fiscal year while the country earned U$21.25 billion from woven and US$25.73 billion from knitwear garments.