Since its inception in 1996, BKMEA has grown from only 200 to over 2,496 members, thus firmly establishing itself as a custodian of Bangladesh's promising knitwear sector. The sector employs approximately 1.9 million people, including 65% women, making significant contribution to the national economy and empowering women from disadvantaged social backgrounds.

BKMEA is continually striving to bring a paradigm shift in industrial infrastructure, in alignment with Industry 4.0 to increase production capacity and efficiency and improve product quality concerning basic and high-value-added knitwear products in maintaining and sustaining our competitive edge in the global knitwear market. By undertaking initiatives like adopting state-of-the-art apparel manufacturing technologies, and fostering international collaborations, particularly with countries that have long and advanced expertise in textile manufacturing, we seek to transform any challenges into opportunities. At the same time, it is also engaged with different development partners, and agencies, to robustly institutionalize standards in social compliance like human and labor rights, and environmental compliance.

Recently, our efforts have also been geared towards diversifying knitwear product baskets and expanding the market base while strengthening its backward linkages for increasing domestic value addition. By doing all these activities, we aim to project Bangladesh as the most promising sourcing destination on the radars of all global retailers.

I look forward to continuing our work to foster the betterment of the sector and all involved.