DHAKA -- A two-hour drive south from the crowded streets of Dhaka, a modern apparel factory stands along dusty streets lined with ramshackle stalls and busy with rickshaws. The state-of-the-art factory can produce 240,000 men's suits per month for western apparel brands such as Sweden's H&M and Britain's Marks & Spencer.
"We used to cut by hand. Now we use machines. You needed 15 people before. Now you need only two," said Chethiya Jayakody, chief executive of Universal Menswear, the plant operator. Most of the 4,800 workers -- 85% of them women -- did not have any experience of making suits, but that is no problem for Jayakody. "You have a fully automatic sewing machine. The machine does everything if the operators are not skillful," said the Sri Lankan manager, who previously worked for an American company.
