Abstract

These days have witnessed a rapid growth of automobile industries all over the world. Although Bangladesh is a poorer country and densely populated, a large number of people works abroad and earn a large amount of foreign exchange. Millions of remittances come into our economy every month, which helps boost our economy and as such, some people have resources to modernize their life-style through the use of modern and new models of vehicles, and other amenities of life. A large number of vehicles are plying on the roads that need repairs and other services. Because of this opportunity, a large number of automobile workshops have been established and are operating throughout the country. There are about 17000 workshops all over Bangladesh. Almost all the workshops are of homogeneous type and as such 50 of such workshops were selected for the study which was considered quite sufficient. Considering the time and cost constraints, those units of workshops were randomly selected from different parts of the Dhaka city and the country. Data were collected through a set of questionnaires by one investigator and the researcher himself. Findings reveal that there are little problems of working capital and technical know-how and to solve these problems, they need financial help and techno-managerial training. The study discloses that small workshops had earned from Tk. 2000 to Tk. 3500 (US$ 30 to US$ 50) per day and spent Tk. 1000 to Tk. 2100 (US$ 15 to US$ 30), the medium workshops’ earning varied from Tk. 3500 to Tk. 6000 (US$ 50 to US$ 90) and the big workshops earned Tk. 5000 to Tk.15000 (US$ 70 to US$ 215 and spent Tk.3500 to Tk.10000 (Us $50 to 142). All of the workshops (95%) were running at a profit. The study discloses that small, medium and large workshop had earned from 2000 to 15000 Tk per day. The large owners can earn net income of 30% after payment of expenses. The large workshops can utilize 80% of the total capacity and the rest is utilized.

Key words: Automobile workshops, economy, development, Bangladesh.