Bangladesh likely to export refrigerator soon
Economic Reporter

Bangladesh is likely to emerge as refrigerator exporting country in the international market as R.B. Group of Companies Ltd is going to export refrigerators for the first time.

Walton High-Tech Industry at Chandra in Gazipur, 40 kilometres off the capital, has started manufacturing world-class refrigerators. Many foreign buyers are showing keen interest because of the competitive price of the international-standard Walton products.

The plant can now produce about 2,000 units of refrigerators a day, sources said, adding the production could be enhanced by three-times if there is a market demand.

The high-tech industry plan started its journey with setting up a composite manufacturing plant a few years back to produce refrigerators and some other electronic goods.

In the Walton plant, all the backward linkage accessories are also being produced to support the main product. Several thousand workers are engaged in different sections like dice, mould, sheet processing, power press, powder coating, injection molding, pre-foaming, thermo-foaming, gasket making and packaging. The manufacturing plant has state-of-art-technology where raw materials enter one side and finishing products come out from the other side.

Sources said, the country’s annual demand for refrigerators is about 500,000 units. The demand is growing with the rapid urbanisation and also the increasing purchasing power of the rural people. Once, refrigerators were imported from foreign countries especially from Japan.

Recent years our local market is being flooded by low quality refrigerators mainly imported from China, India, Thailand and Malaysia. Those low quality refrigerators become useless within one or two years. As a result, this becomes not only a waste of money of local customers but also the country is to spend huge amount of foreign exchanges to import the products.

The growing demand has prompted the Walton management to set up their manufacturing plant near the capital city. The growing demand in the neighbouring countries was another reason to opt for setting up such a venture in the country.

RB Group Director Emdadul Haque Sirkar said in foreign countries a customer buys a refrigerator for two or three years. Later, the customer changes the model. But in our country people expect using refrigerators for 15 or 20 years. The company is manufacturing products in keeping the mind the local environment, he added.

About the product, he said the Group always has something innovative and new for its consumers. Keeping it as a motto R.B Group has introduced Walton refrigerators in the market. Price of Walton refrigerator is 20-30 per cent lower compared to imported ones.