Business leaders have reacted sharply to a recent US study that branded Bangladesh as a ‘high risk’ apparel sourcing country. The Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies of University of Delaware (US) conducted the “Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study” in collaboration with the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA). The study came out with the conclusion after analysing working conditions of 11 garment manufacturing countries, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam and China. Terming the study ‘false and fabricated’, Bangladesh business leaders said a vested quarter is out to tarnish image of Bangladesh’s garments industry afresh when it was going through massive transformation in terms of workers’ and workplace safety under the inspection by the European and American buyers and retailers, Accord and Alliance. “I simply disagree with the findings of the study because it puts disgraceful thoughts on Bangladesh’s apparel industry,” Md. Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, President of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) told The New Nation yesterday. “Bangladeshi is no longer a ‘high risk’ apparel manufacturing country when it is producing and exporting garments following strict compliance rules enforced by the global buyers. So, we cannot accept such fake, fictitious and malicious thoughts which were set up in the study after being motivated by a vested interest group,” Mohiuddin, also a former chief of BGMEA, the apex trade body for the apparel sector, added. Disturbed by the study, he said, “Let them talk about on their own countries and their workplaces, why they come out for acting ‘officiously’ on Bangladesh”. “They should talk about what are happening in Grenfell Tower, fertilizer factories in the US and China,” he added. “We’re rejecting findings of the study because all these are imaginary. Such a baseless study has tarnished our image abroad,” M Siddiqur Rahman, President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told The New Nation yesterday. Refuting the claim of the study, he said, “We’re working to ensure workplace safety in line with the suggestions of global buyers. A lot of work has already been done. Factory remediation process taken by the Accord and Alliance is nearing completion. Despite the fact, the study has identified Bangladesh as a ‘high risk’ apparel sourcing country.” “It seems to be a motivated study. So, we cannot accept its conclusion,” he added.The BGMEA chief said the University of Delaware is a reputed educational institute in America. It should be more careful in conducting study on Bangladesh’s apparel industry that ranked second in the world in terms of export value. Both the business leaders also claimed that Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) industry is now the safest among other industries in the world. In 2014, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety and Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety took a five-year initiative to improve fire, electrical and building safety standard in 2,200 RMG factories from which they used to source apparel products. They took up the initiative after the Rana Plaza factory disaster that killed more than 1,135 workers and injured over 2,500 people, which created a widespread global outcry over safety in Bangladesh’s garment factories. Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest apparel exporter be hind China and the country fetched US$28.15 billion from exports of apparels in the just concluded fiscal year 2016-17.
