Country’s garment sector and its allied business partners are now determined to create awareness among the stakeholders to brighten the image of the sector, the main export earners. “Recently, training programmes on health and safety were carried out in garment factories funded by International Training Centre-International Labour Organization (ITC-ILO) and organised by Bangladesh Employers Association, BGMEA and BKMEA. The first training was carried out at Posmi Sweaters premises earlier in August,” said Md. Moshiul Azam Shajal, Director at BGMEA and Managing Director of Posmi Sweaters Ltd. He further said “We are regularly holding training programs to create awareness. But the cost is rising absurdly high. To renovate one of my factories accommodating full compliance, the cost shoots up to approximately BDT 50 million. We need to get accommodated one way or the other. Decrease in bank interest rate or reduction of oil and gas price will help us balance the cost.” The United States has renewed trade preferences for 122 nations around the world, but Bangladesh has been excluded from the list. Specialists say that the exclusion will hamper the garments sector badly to fulfill the target of fetching USD 50 billion export by 2021. “The export to the US contributed to only 0.5 per cent of Bangladesh’s export. It will not directly affect the overall quantity,” according to an analysis on RMG sector. Apparel export to United States dropped 1.48 per cent from January to June in 2015. While export from Indonesia, India and South Korea grew 2.23 per cent, 2.36 per cent and 6.36 per cent respectively. Specialists have already noted that this exclusion is a result of the compliance and safety issues of the garments factories. The garment companies, BGMEA and the government have unified to find out a solution.
