The Japan Textile Products Quality and Technology Centre, which is called QTEC, will open a laboratory in Dhaka in February next year for inspection of Bangladeshi goods to be exported to Japan. After China and Korea, Bangladesh will be the third country to have a QTEC laboratory, which serves importers testing products following the strict Japanese standard requirements, said a top QTEC official. ‘We will open our Dhaka laboratory on the first day of February 2010,’ Hiroshi Okada, president of Tokyo-based QTEC, told New Age on Thursday.

Having annual turnover of over $30 million, QTEC is one of the Japan’s top three testing and inspection service organisations which serve textile, leather and food industries as well as other sectors. Now in Dhaka, Okada pointed out that Japanese quality inspection requirements are quite different than other countries that import from Bangladesh. ‘Contrary to others, Japanese importers require checks on each unit of the imported goods. Our checklist is much longer,’ he said.

Okada said the Dhaka laboratory would be a state of the art one with most sophisticated equipments. For textile importers, the lab will provide tests in color fastness, shrinkage in yarns to fabrics, tests of hazardous chemicals and metals. Currently, Pacific Quality Centre, a Japan-Bangladesh joint venture inspection company in Dhaka, provides some of the services that would be offered by QTEC. PQC is now providing services to around 50 Japanese importers who procure textile, leather goods, frozen foods and many other products from Bangladesh.

Chairman of the PQC, Shibahara Toshihiro, told New Age that enhanced capacity for meeting Japanese standard requirements had become necessary. ‘I foresee manifold increases on Japanese imports of textile and other products from Bangladesh. All leading Japanese retailers will be here within next few years,’ he said. With finished leather, shoes, frozen shrimps as top products, Japan’s imports from Bangladesh are worth around $200 million.

But in recent months, Bangladesh garment shipments to Japan have risen significantly. In the 2008-2009 fiscal, Bangladesh exported garments worth $74 million to Japan and the year-on-year shipment growth was more than double. But industry people hope for a billion dollar plus share in the $24 billion Japanese market of imported garments. Japan’s strategy of shifting focus from one country [China] to more countries further brightens that prospect, they believe.

-New Age