A scope of environment friendly bicycle production in Bangladesh

Bicyclesare now the best equipment for health exercise and in the gymnasium people take cycling to keep their body fit. If we look 20 years back in Bangladesh, many people used to bicycle for their transportation. In general, we know regular cycling stimulates and improves our heart, lungs and circulation, reducing our risk of cardiovascular diseases. Cycling strengthens our heart muscles, lowers resting pulse and reduces blood fat levels.

Few days ago I read a news about bicycle production in Uganda very interestingly that a school female teacher now making the bamboo bicycle that is being popular now the local people. The main story is Grace Mabika, 33, lives in Mouila, a town six hours from Gabon's capital Libreville. She was an English teacher and saw her students come to school by foot from a long distance. For women, long hours walking was so painful because they need time to go fast because they cook and do other family work. She had an idea about making a bicycle but she did not find the people to support her.

In the pandemic year in 2020, she saw some people lose their jobs who were her employees for bicycle production. She took some loans from family and friends and started her new journey as co-founder of Bamga Bicycle Company. At the initial stage, she built her first bike - a child's tricycle. She observed around her community most of the bicycles are men oriented and women faceda lot of challenges especially for arranging their transportation system.

She then started to produce the female friendly bicycle, which has a huge market in and around her community. She already secured 2000 bicycles order from a company, which was selling China made bicycles. The interesting thing is that raw materials are mostly locally made like bamboo, handlebars and wheels. She has a bamboo forest where a number of women and men are working and everyone is trained which bamboo should be cut for the bicycle.

I emailed her with my questions like how employees know about the bamboo thatshould be cut out and how they make bike frames and varnished. Replied: they are very selective about which shoots they cut. The bamboo must be five years old to cut, the bamboo is put into the steel frame, and locally available ikea glue is used to join every part.She is happy her business is booming day by day and now every bike is £550 that is costly and searching alternative ways to reduce price for everyone.

Her ultimate goal is to build and sell 20,000 bamboo bikes a year and put Africa on the map as a source of quality bamboo.Think about Bangladesh, we have large hilly areas that are fertile for bamboo production. If we consider the bamboo bicycle, we can easily produce it and hold the image of environmental issues to the world. This project has multi-benefits from environment to community to economy.

We see so many start-ups doing fantastic jobs. Most of the owners are young and energetic. They might be interested in taking a pilot project on bamboo bicycle production in Bangladesh. We know Bangladeshi produced bicycles are more popular in the European market. That is our scope of bamboo bicycle branding to them. Let's see if someone initiative may be coming ahead.


Mahiul Kadir is Entrepreneurship Development Expert and Management trained by Harvard Business School.