Beximco will invest $20 million in Detroit

Beximco Group announced it will set up a plant in Detroit in the U.S. The company will produce masks and protective gear in the plant. The company earlier started selling the generic version of Gilead Sciences Inc.'s antiviral drug. Beximco's textile unit is tapping new opportunities as luxury brands from New York to Paris scrap garment orders amid the pandemic. The company expects the Detroit plant to be ready in nine months, while the one in Bangladesh will start production in four months.

Beximco will invest $20 million in the Detroit plant, said Syed Naved Husain, chief executive officer of the group's textile business. The company will also invest $30 million on a plant at home, he said. The company will initially supply N95 masks in Detroit before expanding to other parts of the U.S., Husain said.

Detroit had been recruiting a Bangladeshi company to manufacture jeans in the city, Duggan said, but when the COVID-19 outbreak took hold, the company brought in partners and pivoted to making personal protective equipment. "This comes from a process we've been at for more than a year," Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said  when asked about the plan during a coronavirus response briefing.
The mayor said the city is looking for a site for the factory.

"Nobody picks Detroit at random. This is a result of (Detroit Economic Growth Corp. CEO) Kevin Johnson and the DEGC team and our economic development team," Duggan said. "I think it's time we start to make clothes back in the United States, and we've been working on that for the last year or two. And I didn't expect PPE would be the first plant to come"

Beximco said Hanesbrands Inc. bought 6.5 million personal protective equipment items from the company to supply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Original article:Bangladesh company says it will build mask factory in Detroit

Beximco exports 6.5 million personal protective equipment to US brand Hanes

Bangladesh joined the selected group of countries that manufacture world-class personal protection equipment in a large scale. Beximco Group is now an exporter of the PPE. It exported 6.5 million personal protective equipment to US brand Hanes.

“Beximco has proudly joined the fight against the global pandemic by moving swiftly to add manufacturing capabilities in PPE items such as gowns, masks and coveralls,” said Beximco Group Director Syed Naved Husain. He said COVID-19 had changed how the world works, and that Beximco had to urgently respond.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Md Shahriar Alam, and US Ambassador Earl Miller were present at Shahjalal International Airport to send off Beximco’s first shipment of PPE to the US.  Shahriar lauded the role of Beximco’s contribution to Bangladesh’s economy.He said like the rest of the world Bangladesh is also facing toughest times and trying to cope with this pandemic. “And in these trying times, it’s remarkable to see that within this short span of two months Bangladesh was able to foray into this very regulated market with such a sensitive healthcare product with just not ten or twenty thousand pieces but six and a half million pieces. What an achievement!” he said.

“The US welcomes Bangladesh’s world-class and large-scale PPE production to the global marketplace. The Beximco-Hanes partnership is another great example of how our two great nations are combating the COVID-19 pandemic,” the U.S. ambassador said.

Nazmul Hassan MP, managing director of Beximco Pharma, termed the event historic. He said in the initial days of pandemic, there was huge local demand for PPE and Beximco took the initiative of providing PPEs to local healthcare services through import. “But there was severe shortage globally as demand was increasing. We, therefore, decided to produce them to meet the demand. Today we are not only providing PPE to our local healthcare services but also exporting them to very highly regulated sensitive markets,” he said.



Information gathered from

Beximco exports 6.5 million PPE gowns to US
https://bdnews24.com/business/2020/05/26/beximco-exports-6.5-million-ppe-gowns-to-us

Beximco ships 6.5 million PPE gowns to US
https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/beximco-ships-65-million-ppe-gowns-us-1905616