Bangladesh readymade garment sector should take the EU threat seriously as scrapping of GSP by the 27-nation bloc could put a severe impact on the sector,
economists and exporters told New Age on Thursday.
Centre for Policy Dialogue executive director Mutafizur Rahman said, ‘Obviously it is a warning for Bangladesh. After the Tazreen fire the EU wanted to work with us (in ensuring workplace safety); but this time it moved one step forward and gave the warning.’
‘The warning came as we did not implement all commitments made earlier,’ Mustafiz said. ‘What we are saying that building code, fire safety and workers’ right must be implemented properly and inform the EU.’
He said, ‘If we could implement the commitments within the time limit, the EU would not hopefully cancel the GSP facilities for Bangladesh.’
The EU is also facing sharp criticism on the home markets for doing too little to safeguard the workers making their clothes, Mustafiz said.
The European Union expressed deep concern over labour conditions in Bangladesh after the collapse of Rana Plaza, an eight-storey building which housed five garment factories, at Savar and said it was considering action to encourage improvements, including the use of its trade preference system.
The EU is Bangladesh’s largest trade partner and clothes made inside the building — an illegally built structure that collapsed on April 24, killing more than 400 people — were being produced for retailers in Europe and Canada.
The EU is presently considering appropriate action, including suspension of the Generalised System of Preferences, said a statement, issued on Tuesday by EU foreign affairs representative Catherine Ashton and trade commissioner Karel de Gucht.
‘It’s a real threat for the garment sector and the BGMEA and BKMEA should be very careful,’ Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies senior research fellow Nazneen Ahmed told New Age on Thursday.
‘Earlier, I had said that the foreign buyers could impose tougher conditions and the GSP issue and other conditions would be in a tight spot again as we have a number of active competitors’, she said.
Nazneen also hoped that the EU would not cancel the GSP facilities but the sector people needed to take proper initiatives to comply with the building code, fire safety and workers’ rights.
Suggesting the BGMEA and BKMEA she said that the sector needed to take initiatives to make all the factories compliant and highlight the activities of the factories which were maintaining international standard.
The government assistance is also needed for the small and medium entrepreneurs who have been failing to make their factories complaint, she observed.
The exporters said that they were taking the observation of the EU seriously as the European markets were the major destination of the Bangladeshi garments.
Former BGMEA president Abdus Salam Murshedy said, ‘We are considering the EU concerns with utmost importance and taking necessary steps.’
Murshedy also said they would sit with the EU officials next week in Dhaka and convey to them the steps already taken by the BGMEA.
Former BGMEA president Anwarul Alam Chowdhury Parvez said the EU was very much worried over the compliance issues.
‘We have to prepare a time-bound action plan and government have to inform the EU what we are going to do about the safety issue’ he said.
If the EU withdrew its trade facilities for Bangladesh, the local garment sector would fall in a deep crisis as 59 per cent of the total export goes to the EU markets, he said.
‘We are taking seriously the concern of EU and both the government and BGMEA have to fulfil their commitments over the building code, fire safety and workers rights’, Parvez said.
-With New Age input
