Dhaka / Bangladesh

The Dhaka Office

Dhaka is the capital and largest city of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. While the total area of the country is 147,570km2, the estimated population in 2000 was 129,146,695 making Bangladesh one of the ten most populous countries in the world. Though its economy is largely dependent on agriculture, world interest has increased remarkably due to its wide market potential in many other sectors like ready made garments (RMG), machinery, energy, manpower and communications.

Marubeni started operating in Bangladesh in 1956 in the port city of Chittagong. In 1961, the Dhaka Office was established as a liaison office. During that time, the main item of interest was jute, which was called the golden fiber of Bangladesh. Gradually Marubeni became involved in metals, textile materials, chemicals, energy, food, medical equipment, construction, textile machinery and the communications business with combined annual sales of over US$100 million. Today Marubeni's Dhaka Office is operated by four Japanese and twenty-nine national staff working together like family to oversee Marubeni's interests.

After Liberation in 1971, the country began to emphasize the development of non-traditional exports. By 1983, RMG emerged to be the most promising sector in the country's economy. Today the foreign exchange earnings from RMG exports is over US$4,300 million while it was only US$6.4 million in 1981. Because of the RMG exports and local textile consumption, Bangladesh has become a significant market for raw textile materials and textile machinery. Marubeni's Dhaka Office achieved US$28 million in sales in the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2001 through its textile material business alone.

Ali Newaz is one of the dedicated sales staff in the Textile Material Department. Since he joined in 1997, his business volume has sharply increased each year. Mr. Newaz believes, "Making friendships with target people is the magic wand in business." From the beginning, he tried to spend as much time as possible with potential customers. His style is to start with personal and friendly conversation and then gently turn the customer to speaking of business. Much important business comes out of simple table talk, Mr. Newaz notes. He started his business with very basic acrylic yarn and now he is handling many kinds of dyed yarn and raw white yarn as well as fiber business from Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Thailand and Japan. He has found sportsmanship in his work and every achievement enhances his courage and efficiency.

Mr. Newaz explains that the character of people differs according to the regions they are from because of many anthropological factors. Therefore, to be an efficient sales person one must have sufficient knowledge about customer behavior as well as human psychology. When Mr. Newaz studied in the country's number one university (Dhaka University), he took psychology as an additional subject and it helps him a lot in reading the minds of customers and in developing personal relationships with them.

As a member of the Textile Material Department, Mr. Newaz strongly believes that it is time for the Dhaka Office to concentrate on RMG exports to the U.S. and European countries. Since 75% of the country's foreign earnings are coming from RMG exports and RMG exporters are dominating the yarn and fabric raw materials market, it will be much easier for Marubeni to increase business volume if RMG business can be initiated.

Recently, Bangladesh has become full of business prospects for energy, natural resources, communications, software engineering, construction and backward linkage industries for textiles. As it seems that Bangladesh's economy will grow dramatically, Mr. Newaz is preparing himself to be the right person at the right time.

The Marubeni Dhaka Office is located in a prominent business area.