Seven domestic plants supply well over 95% of national nonwoven geotextile demand — using imported Chinese polypropylene fibre. So if someone offers to sell you nonwoven from China, ask why. The layers that genuinely still come in are on the right, top of the slope down to the riverbed.
One bank section, crest → bed
The spine
Read it the way you build it: crest at the top, riverbed at the bottom. The badge on the right is the honest answer to "can I buy this locally?"
Why this matters commercially: the layer Bangladesh supplies is the cheap one by area. The layers that still come in are the ones with a specification that can fail, an installation that can fail, and a tender clause attached. Getting those wrong is not a procurement saving.
Why the demand keeps coming
14.7m
River training works for the Padma bridge consumed roughly 14.7 million geobags, alongside about 68,000 geotubes.
$1.1bn
River training alone accounted for around $1.1 billion of the Padma programme — more than a third of the total.
21m+
Underwater bed and slope protection on the same programme used over 21 million geobags, plus millions of concrete blocks.
One bridge. And the Water Development Board tenders bank protection, groynes and embankment works continuously, in a country where the rivers move every monsoon. This is not a project market, it is a maintenance market — which is why the specification, not the one-off price, is what you should be optimising.
Getting the specification right
What the tender writes
Mass per unit areag/m², usually the headline number
What we actually test
The easiest number to hit and the least meaningful alone — a heavy fabric with poor fibre still fails
What the tender writes
Tensile strengthkN/m, machine and cross direction
What we actually test
Both directions tested; woven and nonwoven are not interchangeable at the same stated strength
What the tender writes
CBR punctureN, for the filter layer under armour
What we actually test
Decides survivability during placement, not during service — the failure nobody budgets for
What the tender writes
Seam strengthOften under-specified for bags and tubes
What we actually test
For geobags and geotubes this is the failure mode. We test the seam, not just the cloth
What the tender writes
UV resistance% retained after exposure hours
What we actually test
Matters when bags sit exposed before placement, which is normal on long river jobs
What the tender writes
Polymer & resin"Virgin PP/PE" if the writer was careful
What we actually test
Recycled resin is the quiet substitution — see the OIT test
If you are being asked to accept a substitution "of equivalent quality", the two documents that settle it are the test report and the standard it was tested to. Chinese mills quote to GB standards by default; most Bangladeshi tenders are written to ASTM or ISO. Those are reconcilable, but not by assuming — see GB vs ASTM for geosynthetics and how to read a geotextile test report.
Send us the specification clause and we will tell you what it maps to →
Technical data sheets — forward to your consultant
Geotextile tubes & geobags TDS (PDF, 2 pages) · Nonwoven & woven geotextile TDS (PDF, 4 pages) · HDPE / LLDPE geomembrane TDS (PDF, 4 pages)
What we have shipped
A shipped order, roll width and length as the site wanted them rather than as the mill preferred to cut them. Buyer and destination withheld.
Roll geometry sounds like a detail until you are unrolling on a slope — the wrong width doubles your overlaps and your labour.
Geosynthetics are volume, not weight. How rolls are stacked, whether cores are supported, and how bags are compressed decides how much you actually get per container.
The detail is in our container loading guide.
Beyond this page, the underlying product detail sits in our geosynthetics library: geotextile · geogrid · HDPE geomembrane · gabions · woven vs nonwoven · the full range.
Where we fit
We are a buying office in China for orders that span more factories than you can manage from abroad — which on a river job usually means fabric from one mill, wire from another and blocks from a third, arriving as one shipment. On the goods themselves we add no margin: you see and pay the factory's own invoice.
Where our money comes from: China's export VAT rebate, 8–11% depending on the product, claimed by the exporter of record after the goods leave. It is not a kickback from any factory, and not a cut hidden in your price — so we have no reason to push the mill that pays us more, because none of them do.
Payment for Bangladeshi buyers usually means a letter of credit; how that works with Chinese mills that only take T/T is on the payment page. What the container costs to land at Chattogram is on the landed cost page.
And sometimes this order does not need us. If this one is a single roll type, from one mill, to a specification already proven on your last job, then adding a layer adds cost and nothing else. We will say so about that order.
Straight answers
Because "geotextile" is not one product. Domestic mills cover nonwoven — well over 95% of national demand — using imported polypropylene fibre. Geobags and geotubes for river training, geogrid, HDPE geomembrane and high-strength wovens are still largely brought in. If you are buying nonwoven, buy it locally; the imported list is everything else.
The seam, most often, and then the fabric's UV state if the bags sat exposed before placement. Weight per bag is a design input, not a quality measure — the Padma works used 125 kg bags in three layers for flows up to about 3 m/s, but a 125 kg bag with a weak seam is just a slower failure.
It is reconcilable but not automatic — the test methods and the reported values are not always like for like. Ask for the test report and the standard it was run to, not a specification sheet. We check that mapping before an order is placed, not after the material is on site.
Send the clause. We will tell you what it maps to at Chinese mills, where the specification is loose enough to be substituted against you, and what to insist on in the test report.
It depends far more on roll geometry and stacking than on weight — geosynthetics ship as volume. Our loading guide covers the arithmetic.
Yes — fabric, wire and accessories from different mills in one container, one bill of lading, one customs entry. On a river job that usually matters more than the unit price of any one item.
Send the specification
Not "send us your requirements" — send the actual specification text, the quantity and the delivery window. We come back with what it maps to at Chinese mills, where the clause is vulnerable to substitution, and what the container works out to.
Usually within one working day, Bangladesh time.
Please message us on WhatsApp or email [email protected].