1. Activities and Achievements of the Month
1.1 Summary of Progress
The GoB office closure in response to the global outbreak of COVID-19 started from 26 March 2020. It was finally lifted on 30 May, allowing the office activities to resume from Sunday 31 May. The condition being as such, the Project Implementation (PI) Consultant Team’s field activities remained suspended throughout the reporting month, and the international consultants’ despatch plans could not be implemented. It could not be revised as the outlook for subsiding of the outbreak is still unclear.
There are, nevertheless, Project implementation activities which can be pursued through remote online communications among the team members, SREDA and the implementing financial institutions. Consultations with the experts and stakeholders could be conducted online, then to be documented and submitted to SREDA. Project coordination discussions could also be done online, and the first of such meeting actually took place on 28 May 2020 (as in Fig 1 below), as a preparation for the resumption of the GoB office work from the next month.
Making the plans for the activities to be restarted, right after the pandemic, was another work which could be done even during the global movement restrictions. The PI Consultant Team, through discussions among themselves and also with other experts, initiated two planning activities as a starting point for further discussions with SREDA. The PI Consultant Team, by supporting SREDA, will be elaborating and refining the proposed strategy and plan from the next month, with a high hope for the activities to be restarting as soon as the conditions permit.
The following items were the major activities of the team.
- Project scope enhancement – revision and enhancement of the eligible technology and equipment list for the Project loan, focusing on knitting, dyeing & finishing processes, steel making and chemical sectors. Shared the updated draft with SREDA on 20 May 2020.
- Market analysis – rough estimation of demand (for calculation of fund requirements) and energy saving potentials were prepared as a back data for the revised eligible technology and equipment list. Shared with SREDA also on 20 May 2020 (Appendix 09-1).
- Energy saving potential calculation refining – The PI consultant team reviewed some of the past energy audit results as a further study for refining the energy saving potential calculation practice (as in Fig 2 below).
- Prepared an awareness raising strategy – Awareness Raising through Private Sector Engagement – submitted to SREDA, end of May 2020 (Appendix 09-2).
- Prepared an initial version of the foreign training plan – Foreign Training Programme (Study Tour #1: Japan)- submitted to SREDA, end of May 2020 (Appendix 09-3).
- Completed the development of two additional modules on MIS: (i) Change Request Monitoring, and (ii) Additional (analysis) Report Generation. Specification document finalised (Revision made to Appendix 07-2 and finalised).
- Communication with two international apparels retailer on promotion of EE&C in their product supply chain.
Discussion Meeting on 21 May 2020
1.2 Market Analysis on Eligible Technologies and Equipment Revision
The revision work had already started from January 2020. Now that the revision proposal is ready, the PI Consultant Team conducted a rough survey to identify the demand for the newly-added equipment to the eligible technology and equipment list with this proposed revision.
The analysis was done focusing on the two issues: one is to calculate the fund demand increase due to addition of the newly-proposed equipment on this occasion of the list revision; the other is to calculate the possible energy saving if the equipment is introduced and operates. The analysis results showed that the annual fund requirement, which was USD 228 million before the addition (calculated during the Phase 1 Project formulation work back in 2015-16) became US 836 million with the proposed addition of new eligible equipment. It means that the fund demand has risen by 3.7 times compared with the original (current) list. The annual energy saving potential calculation, resulted in the original figure of 30,000 toe becoming 135,000 toe with the newly proposed equipment addition. This is a significant increase in the potential Project performance by 4.5 folds.
The tentative calculation results being approximately 4 times the original figure calculated in 2015 is likely to be because the original calculation was not comprehensive, missing out many of the equipment. Back then in 2015, the information was not sufficient to be making a comprehensive calculation, while the present revision calculation could be done with the accumulated knowledge through the Project implementation since 2016 up to now.
Examples of Proposed Additional Equipment to the Eligible List:
(Source: Shima Seiki)
for Knit Fabrics (Source: Erbatech)
(Source: Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers)
1.3 Addition of Two Modules onto the Project MIS
The two additional modules were added to the Project MIS. Both of these modules will significantly contribute to the better Project management by the PI Consultant Team through improved documentation and data management. The specifications for these modules were prepared by Dr Mahady Hasan, Associate Professor at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), who is participating as the PI Consultant Team’s ICT environment and data management expert, in close collaboration with the Project MIS developer, CSL Software Resources Ltd. The initial design was proposed in March (the requirement definition document was submitted to SREDA for reference in the Monthly Progress Report 07 (for the month of March 2020). Having gone through the PI Consultant Team members’ scrutinization, it was then revised in April, to be actually deployed to the module development. This month, in May 2020, the team saw the completion of these two modules, and in response, further revised the modules specification document to include the actual improvements that took place even during the development (the revised and finalised specification documents, dated May 2020, is available on demand for reference but not attached to this Monthly Progress Report to avoid partial duplication with the March report).
The launch of these modules will take place on the occasion of a scheduled MIS maintenance from 6pm, on 2nd June 2020, to be available for use from the next day.
1.4 Administrative Works
SREDA hosted the first remote meeting with the PI Consultant Team to discuss on the Project coordination issues. It was confirmed that with the resuming of the office activities from the next month, paper documents can now be received at SREDA, and the PI Consultant Team was requested to despatch all pending document submissions.
2. Appendices
Appendix 09-1: Market Analysis on Revised Eligible Technology and Equipment List
(tentative, as of 29 May 2020)
Appendix 09-2: Awareness Raising Through Private Sector Engagement
(strategy paper) – this document may be published on website. Appendix 09-3: Foreign Training Programme (Study Tour #1: Japan)