Western retailers open B'desh garment factories to inspections

A grouping of 70 Western retailers and brands will inspect the safety standards of Bangladeshi garments units in the wake of global uproar following the collapse of a commercial building here in April that killed 1,129 people in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
"Initial inspections at every factory will be completed at the latest within nine months and plans for renovations and repairs will be put in place where necessary," local media today reported quoting a statement of the buyers' consortium issued in Geneva yesterday.
"Our mission is clear: to ensure the safety of all workers in the Bangladesh garment industry. Direct involvement of workers in the factories is key to the success of this programme," the statement said.

The grouping of the mostly European retailers said under a steering committee they would also provide funds for renovation of factories if they are found it to be at risk.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) cautiously welcomed the move, saying the inspection was expected to benefit the country's crucial industry, one of the main foreign exchange earners.
"If retailers do something positive, our industries will be immensely benefited. But if they impose harsh terms and conditions, we will not be able to implement those, and eventually it will have negative impact on industries," BGMEA president Atiqul Islam said in a statement.

According to BGMEA officials, the buyers' representatives comprising local and international experts would focus on structural faults of the factories that could cause accidents like fire or collapse.

The consortium was formed under an accord two months after the collapse of the eight-story RanaPlaza in April on the outskirts of Dhaka under the initiatives of IndustriALL and UNI Global Union.
Major signatories to the accord include H&M, Carrefour, Marks & Spencer and PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger but most US retail giants like Wal-Mart, Gap and Target excluded them from the groping saying they planned to carry out separate inspections.

The inspection plan came 10 days after the US suspended Bangladesh's preferential trading status in its market over the safety standards in factories as well as workers' rights while Dhaka feared similar step from the European Union.
The EU, however, assured that they were unlikely to suspend the preferential facility under the Generalised System of Preference but insisted that Bangladesh must take effective steps to improve the factory safety standards.
The poor safety records earned the country a bad repute after a series of accidents in the past several years.
EU officials earlier said they hoped the threat of action would be enough to make Bangladesh change its laws in order to retain the market, which forms over a quarter of the south Asian state's USD 40.5 billion annual exports in 2011.