High labour and safety standards can bring substantial improvements in increasing productivity and saving production cost in the readymade garment sector in Bangladesh, said a study of DEG, a member of the Let’s Work Partnership. DEG, a subsidiary of the KfW, the banking group of German government-owned development bank, has recently conducted the study on DBL Group Bangladesh and found that the company was able to comply with increasing working and safety standards while defending its position in a highly competitive market due to its efficient production as well as superior quality. The study said sometimes, a very small alteration of established circumstances had a huge impact on peoples’ lives and the company as a whole. According to the study, the inclusion of fair price shops, day care centres, pharmacies and medical centres can bring substantial benefits not only for workers but also for the company itself in terms of lower risks of working accidents and production interruptions, lower rates of worker absenteeism because of illness or their reluctance to leave their kids alone at home. In combination with further production efficiency measures — like training programmes and resource efficiency measures — those effects led to less downtime, increased wages and strengthened DBL’s competitive advantage, the study found. The case study showed that better working conditions could be a business case, even in a highly competitive sector with low margins like the garment sector in Bangladesh. Recently, the DEG released the study ‘Committed to fair working conditions – DBL Group: High labour and safety standards in the Bangladeshi garment industry pay off’ at its office in Cologne in Germany.
