There goes a well-known saying– ‘success does not come on a silver platter.’ This writer understood the inner meaning of the saying when he entered the readymade garment (RMG) business as an entrepreneur. It was indeed extremely difficult for a first-generation businessman to establish and run successfully a 100 per cent export-oriented RMG factory. I better understood the connotation when I assumed the office of the Vice President of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) for the period of 2013-15. It had been the most difficult time our apparel industry has gone through since its inception. We took the charge of BGMEA at a time when the garment industry of Bangladesh was beset with a number of formidable challenges created by some unfortunate incidents. Within a month of our taking office, the most tragic incident in the history of RMG industry — Rana Plaza collapse– took place, damaging the image of our RMG industry and putting it under tremendous pressure at home and abroad. Our apparel sector has never gone through such a critical situation before. While our garment industry was reeling from the tragic accident, it was further hard hit by the labour unrest over wages. The situation took a turn to the worse with the eruption of a series of violent political programmes like hartal and blockade both in 2013 and 2014 that dealt a serious blow to the garment industry. Moreover, the US suspended its GSP facility for Bangladesh, pushing the country into an image crisis. With all these happenings it had been really a tough and testing time for us. However, we did not give in to the challenges, rather we dealt with the difficulties boldly with support from the government, entrepreneurs, and of course our workers worked relentlessly and kept the wheels running. Following the two tragic incidents — Rana Plaza collapse and Tazreen fire — all the stakeholders realised the importance of safety at workplace more than ever before. The calls for change became loud and clear in the wake of the two major accidents that occurred in a period of only five months. The message was that there must be a change to ensure safe workplace conditions through factory remediation. Three initiatives – the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety (Accord), the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety (Alliance), and the National Action Plan (NAP) – were launched at international and national levels to bring about the desired change. We witnessed a remarkable experience of working together in the last two and a half years. The collaboration between governments, employers, workers, buyers, donor agencies played a unique role to bring about a real coordination and get the things done. Initially, there was a lot of confusion and apprehension in the industry regarding the massive inspection move launched under the three safety platforms since the sector never experienced the same before. However, we realised and were able to make our member factories recognise the fact that ensuring workplace safety is a must. There is unprecedented change in the mindset of our RMG entrepreneurs regarding workplace safety and they have given top priority to safety measures. To raise awareness among them, BGMEA along with Accord and Alliance, organised for the first time in Bangladesh expositions of fire safety equipment in Dhaka and Chittagong. Presence of a large number of visitors in the expos is a testimony to the change in the mindset of our RMG entrepreneurs. Both Accord and Alliance completed inspection of 100 per cent factories and the National Action Plan will complete 100 per cent factory inspection by this October. It is really heartening for us that more than 98 per cent of the inspected factories were found safe for operation. BGMEA, as the representative of the RMG industry, adopted a zero-tolerance policy regarding the safety issue and it has paid off – our workers can now work at their workplaces with a feeling of safety. After completion of inspection, a new challenge of implementing the Corrective Action Plan (CAP) in the factories emerged. The CAP may differ from factory to factory, but remediation and CAP was certainly a new thing for the factories that required a huge amount of fund. It would be very difficult for the factories to bear such huge cost. Keeping that in mind we started discussions with international brands, buyers and development partners to ensure low-cost finance for carrying out remediation in the sector. Our RMG industry is really experiencing a positive, visible change because of these safety reforms which will ensure continuity of safety monitoring in our garment factories. To set up modern RMG factories, BGMEA has long been trying to set up a garment industrial park with all modern facilities and the dream is soon going to become a reality. BGMEA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a Chinese firm – Orient International Holdings Ltd (OIH) to set up the Garment Industrial Park at Gazaria in Munshiganj district. We also worked to promote a positive image of our RMG industry and the country internationally. We participated in many internationals seminars and programs, including Prime Source Forum (PSF) Conference in Hong Kong and EU Sustainability Compact Review. We also participated in the Bangladesh Development Conference 2014 at Harvard University, Readymade Garment (RMG) Forum 2014 at Melbourne, NFPA Conference and Expo in Las Vegas, OECD Conference in Paris, Stuttgart Conference, G-7 Multi-stakeholder Conference, and International Workshop on Public-Private Dialogue in Denmark, where we presented the positive changes of our apparel industry to the world community. They lauded the progress our RMG industry made in such a short period of time. While it is true that our apparel industry faces a number of challenges, opportunities are also there for considerable growth of the sector. BGMEA organised the Dhaka Apparel Summit for the first time in the history of RMG industry of Bangladesh bringing different stakeholders, including global minds and academics from renowned universities of the world, brands, entrepreneurs, workers’ representatives and development partners together to explore every avenue towards a bright future of our RMG industry. In the summit, Bangladesh has set a vision of achieving $50 billion in RMG exports in 2021 when the country will celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence. In the summit a road map to materialising the vision was also prepared. After tackling the safety concerns, we can now say with conviction that it is an achievable goal and we have the opportunities and abilities to realise Vision 2021. The RMG industry has been making a significant contribution to socio-economic transformation of Bangladesh. Given the dominance of the sector in the economy, the country’s future largely depends on the development of the industry. We believe, the RMG industry has a lot more to contribute to the development of Bangladesh. What we need most is to work together for the betterment of this sector.
