Buyers sever ties with 12 more RMG factories

Published in the New Age on 15, August 2017

The western fashion brands and retailers have announced to cut business relations with 12 more readymade garment factories in Bangladesh, taking the total number to 248 as the factories failed to implement workplace safety measures suggested by the two separate platform of buyers.
Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, the platform of European brands and retailers, has terminated business
relations with 10 more RMG factories of four business groups.
The Alliance for Bangladesh workers safety, the North American buyers’ platform, has suspended two more supplier factories from its compliant factory list due to failure to make adequate remediation of the factories.
The Accord suspended factories are : Ababil Knit Composite Ltd, Mantrust Sweater Ltd, Mantrust Designer Limited, Promod Knitwear Limited, Mantrust Accesories Limited and Mantrust Embroidery and Printing Limited under Mantrust group, Ali Apparels Ltd and Cotton Textile and Apparels Ltd, General Import-Export Ltd and IB Apparels Ltd of Cotton Tex Group.
With the 10, the total number of RMG factories with which EU buyers cut business relations in different times on workplace safety grounds reached to 89.
The Alliance suspended factories are : Hypoid Composite Knit Ltd and Sun Cherry Body Fashions Ltd.
The platform has so far cut business relations with 159 supplier factories due to failure to make adequate remediation progress.
Accord in separate statements said that the supplier factories of the four groups were inspected for fire, electrical and structural safety by the Accord in 2014 and the factory owners continued to fail to implement the remediation works.
Despite notice and warning process and numerous efforts by the Accord staff and Accord signatories, the factory owners continued to fail to cooperate and implement the corrective action plans approved by the Accord, the buyers’ platform said.
The Accord urged its signatory companies, which were using the factories, to terminate business relations with the four supplier companies and all factories they operated.
After the Rana Plaza building collapse in April 24, 2013, that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garments workers, North American retailers including Walmart and Gap formed the Alliance undertaking a five-year plan, which set timeframes and accountability for inspections and training and workers empowerment programmes.
At the same time, EU retailers formed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety to improve factory safety in Bangladesh.
As many as 83 Accord-listed factories have so far completed all the remediation work while 144 Alliance listed factories completed full safety remediations.