Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) on Tuesday said the success in fulfilling the conditions of the Sustainability Compact on factory safety has helped the RMG regains lost image it has been suffering due to the industrial catastrophes. GMEA President Shafiqur Rahman made the remarks while addressing a press conference at the BGMEA office ahead of the second review meeting on the implementation of the Sustainability Compact scheduled for January 28 in Dhaka.The Sustainability Compact, an agreement between the EU and the government with the support of the ILO, aims to improve health and safety, labour rights and responsible business conduct in Bangladesh’s readymade garment industry.While addressing the press conference, the BGMEA President said a total of 3,660 factories have been inspected by the joint efforts of National Action Plan on Fire Safety (NAP), Accord, Alliance and BGMEA. “Subsequently, all the factories have undergone necessary reforms to fulfill the requirement of the Sustainability Compact,” he said.“The labour law has been amended in July 2013, a total of 337 trade unions have been registered from 2013, labour regulations has been adopted on September 16, 2015 and payment 0.03 percent of export income to the workers welfare fund has been made mandatory for the RMG owners, safety committee has been made mandatory for factories, the better work programme is in progress under which 94 factories have been registered so far,“ Safiqur Rahman added. He said the BGMEA Fire Safety Cell provided fire safety trainings to a total of 103,068 workers and employees and 20,188 mid-level staff members under a crush programme. The BGMEA has been implementing Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) scheme in cooperation with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and a total of 8 lakh of workers will be trained under this programme.Shafiqur said BGMEA has an engineering team for examining the structural fitness for any new garment unit seeking BGMEA membership.“BGMEA has taken steps to stop illegal sub-contracting by ensuring that the sub-contract factories maintain all the compliances, hold BGMEA membership and offer group-insurance for the workers,“ he added.The BGMEA President also claimed that their member factories carried out massive re-structuring works after the Rana Plaza collapse.“With the joint efforts of the government, Accord, Alliance, ILO, BGMEA, development partners, labour organisations and the foreign missions in Dhaka, the country has already earned the name of a safe garment manufacturing zone,” he said.Mentioning that ensuring responsible business is among the key focuses of the Sustainability Compact, Shafiqur Rahman said prices of Bangladeshi apparel products are facing a downward trend in the US and EU market, leading to a rise in cost of doing business for the RMG owners. “A factory has to spend Tk 5 crores for the Correction Action Plan (CAP), which is very tough for mid-level factories,” the BGMEA chief said, urging the buyers to pay fair price for Bangladeshi apparel products. Senior Vice President Faruk Hasan, Vice President (Finance) Md Nasir, Vice President Mansur Ahmed, Directors Saifuddin Ahmed, Afzal Karim Khan, Mijanur Rahman and Ashiqur Rahman of BGMEA were also present at the press conference.
