Commerce minister Tofail Ahmed on Saturday said the global retailers’ groups — Accord and Alliance — were responsible for the negative growth in the country’s export earnings in the last couple of months of the current financial year. ‘Industrial accidents occur in many countries in the world but there are no operations of Accord on Fire and Building Safety and Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety except Bangladesh. And the reasons for the recent negative export earnings growth are the activities of the two platforms of global retailers,’ Tofail said while speaking at a roundtable in the city.
The event titled ‘RMG sector: challenges and way forward’ was organised by Dhaka Tribune at the CIRDAP auditorium.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association president Md Atiqul Islam presented the key note paper in the event while International Labour Organisation country director Srinivas B Reddy, Accord on Fire and Building Safety executive director Rob Wayss, Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety managing director M Rabin, former BGMEA presidents Tipu Munshi, Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury and Absud Salam Murshedy and Bangladesh Trade Union Centre general secretary Wajed-ul Islam Khan spoke.
Dhaka Tribune editor Zafar Sobhan moderated the discussion.
Tofail said that the European retailers’ group Accord and North American retailers’ group Alliance inspected about 1,800 garment factories in the country and found structural faults in less than 2 per cent of the factories whereas the percentage of global vulnerable factories is 2.
He said that the outsiders, who do not work in any factory but hold posts in trade unions, were the challenge for the garment sector in Bangladesh.
The minister asked the Accord executive director what was the percentage of trade union in the private sector in the United States.
Wayss replied that 9 per cent of the factories in the private sector in the US had trade unions.
Wayss was involved with American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations, the largest federation of unions in the US.
Tofail said it was very much interesting that there were trade unions in only nine per of the factories in the US whereas they mounted pressure on Bangladesh to introduce trade unions in 100 per cent factories.
‘US would continue impose conditions on Bangladesh until doomsday as we are the second largest readymade garment exporter in the world and we have potentials to become the first,’ he said.
Atiqul Islam pointed out that poor infrastructure, increasing cost of production, lack of forward linkage and skilled human resource, shortage of power and gas and high bank interest are the challenges for the country’s RMG sector.
He emphasised on establishing sound infrastructure and producing skilled man power to enhance productivity.
He said due to lack of skilled manpower in the country about 19,000 foreign nationals were working in the mid-level management and higher position in the garment factories in Bangladesh and they were taking out around Tk 400 crore from the country every year.
Atiq demanded a separate ministry or division for the garment sector and to ensure all sorts of supports to the entrepreneurs in exporting apparel.
Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury said that following the Rana Plaza building collapse buyers were not placing order to any new factory in Bangladesh and were not increasing volume of orders as they wanted a clean certificate before placing order.
He said that the country would continue to see negative export earnings in the coming years as buyers would not place orders to the factories housed in shared or converted buildings until relocation.
Demanding uninterrupted power and energy supply, Anwar-ul said that the government was offering uninterrupted power and energy to the investors of Japan, Korea and India but not to the local investors.
Wajed-ul Islam Khan emphasised on relocation, establishment of planed garment village and separate ministry for the RMG sector.
He said that establishing trade union was only way to resolve the crisis of garment sector and the number of the registration for trade unions in the sector in one year was insignificant.
Srinivas B Reddy said that resources were needed for about 1,800 garment factories, which are not on the inspection lists of Accord or Alliance, where the safety inspection was going on under the joint initiative of the government and the ILO.
He said that there was a trust crisis between garment owners and workers and a lot of problems would be solved once the trust crisis was removed.
M Rabin said that remediation financing, bureaucratic quagmire, relocation of factories from shared buildings and the existing subcontracting factories were the challenges for the country’s garment sector.
Alliance has made commitment of $40 million for remediation financing and started a process to bring $2 million through the International Finance Corporation but the process remained stalled in last three months due to bureaucratic tangle.
He urged the government to formulate effective subcontracting guidelines to bring a good number of factories which are not members of BGMEA or BKMEA under regulations.
-With New Age input
