bangladesh readymade garment - Dhaka Mirror

Scrapping production in Bangladesh is not solution

Admin — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:19:24 +0000

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned global brands that abandoning readymade garment production in Bangladesh could
deprive it of an essential pathway out of poverty.
OECD secretary general Angel Gurría in a statement on Tuesday said that the Rana Plaza tragedy was a ‘dramatic wakeup call’ for the international textile industry, governments and other stakeholders to address the risks before they resulted in such tragedies.
As many as 1,130 people, mostly garment workers, were killed in the collapse of Rana plaza that housed five garment factories at Savar on April 24.
The organisation of the rich countries said, ‘The responsible course [for solution] is to work with stakeholders to guarantee the safety of workers, improve their working conditions and ensure respect for human rights.’
Gurría has written to the president of Bangladesh to offer the OECD’s full support, said the statement.
He also extended support to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which was signed by many of the international brands, except some North American brands like Walmart.
The release said that the Rana Plaza tragedy would be addressed as a matter of priority in the high-level discussions at the Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct and the meeting of National Contact Points for the OECD Guidelines to be held in Paris in June 24-27.
Bangladesh has been invited to join a broad spectrum of governments and stakeholders to address the challenges facing the textile industry, coordinate actions of the signatories to the Guidelines and develop collective responses under the OECD Guidelines’ pro-active agenda.
Foreign minister Dipu Moni has been invited to attend the meeting.

-With New Age input

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EU issues GSP threat over safety in workplace

Admin — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:30:49 +0000

The European Union has warned that it would take trade action against Bangladesh through its generalised system of preferences that the country gets on the EU market if the
country failed to ensure workers’ safety in factories.
The EU issued the threat on Tuesday, following the April 24 collapse of a building that housed five garment factories, killing more than 400 workers at Savar.
‘As Bangladesh’s largest trade partner, the European Union is very concerned about the labour conditions, including health and safety provisions, established for workers in factories across the country,’ the 27-nation bloc said in a statement issued by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and trade commissioner Karel de Gucht.
‘The EU is presently considering appropriate action, including through the Generalised System of Preferences — through which Bangladesh currently receives duty-free and quota-free access to the EU market under the “Everything But Arms” scheme – in order to incentivise responsible management of supply chains involving developing countries,’ it said.
It said that sheer scale of the disaster at Savar and the alleged criminality around the building’s construction was becoming clear to the world.
The Savar tragedy was all the more shocking as it followed textile factory fires in Bangladesh in recent months which have killed more than a hundred workers, it said.
‘In light of all these events, the European Union calls upon the Bangladeshi authorities to act immediately to ensure that factories across the country comply with international labour standards including International Labour Organisation conventions,’ it said.
The EU is Bangladesh’s top trading partner, accounting around 60 per cent of the country’s exports and if it were outside the GSP, it would face normal import duties, which are 12 per cent for many clothing items ranging from men’s jackets to women’s blouses.
European Commission officials, however, acknowledged a suspension of GSP for Bangladesh was unlikely, reports Washington Post.
But they hoped the threat of such a move would shock Bangladeshi authorities and European companies doing business there into action.
‘We will put a fire under their feet a little bit,’ said one commission official.
If Bangladesh were to lose its preferential trading status with Europe over conditions in its garment factories, it could face hundreds of millions of dollars in duties and limits on access to its largest trading partner, reports Reuters.
EU officials said on Wednesday they hoped the threat of action would be enough to make Bangladesh change its laws to retain the market. Any action would likely to take more than a year.
‘This is about firing a shot across the bows of Bangladesh to get them to engage on the issue,’ an EU official told Reuters. ‘We want to turn up the diplomatic heat on them and get them to sit down and discuss this with us.’
It was the second warning this year from the EC for the country, reports Reuters.
In January, the bloc called on Bangladesh to immediately act to ensure its factories comply with International Labour Organisation standards, after a garment factory fire killed six employees.
This followed a November fire at Tazreen factory that killed 112 workers and prompted US lawmakers to call for suspending their own GSP programme with Bangladesh, but no action was taken.
If the European Commission did suspend Bangladesh from the GSP scheme, it would not be the first time the bloc used access to trade preferences as leverage in dealing with countries.
The Commission suspended Myanmar from the scheme in 1997, prompted by concerns over forced labour. A positive report from the ILO last year resulted in the Commission proposing to readmit the country to GSP in September.
In 2007, the Commission ended GSP to Belarus after an ILO report found the country failed to respect basic rights allowing trade unions.
In the case of Bangladesh, the next possible step would be for the European Commission to launch an investigation into concerns over labour conditions in the country, after first consulting with European governments, a process that could take more than a year.
Only after this investigation the Commission would consider whether or not a country could be temporarily withdrawn from the GSP scheme. This decision would need to then be approved by EU member countries.

-With New Age input

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RMG sector should take EU threat seriously: experts

Admin — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:29:47 +0000

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

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