CPD RMG Study Stitching a better future for Bangladesh
Every day, CPD RMG Study reveals what’s on our economic and apparel radar and curates a selection of the best reports, opinion, and analysis you may have missed
ADB president praises Bangladesh for workplace safety efforts
Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Takehiko Nakao has praised Bangladesh for its efforts to improve the workplace safety following Rana Plaza disaster, one of the worst ever industrial accidents in the world, English language daily the Financial Express reported.
The ADB President praised the country while replying to question at the opening press conference of the 50th annual meeting of the Board of Governors of ADB in Yokohama, Japan, Thursday, the report said.
“Bangladesh is putting serious effort to make the workplace safer,” he said without categorically referring to Rana Plaza tragedy, which claimed lives of more than 1,100 garment workers in April 2013.
Foreign buyers make huge profits on Bangladeshi RMG products but pay the manufacturers poorly
Foreign buyers make huge profits on Bangladeshi RMG products but pay the manufacturers poorly, English language daily Dhaka Tribune reported. The report said that foreign buyers make as much as 600% profit on a single item at the retail end; in other words, a consumer may end up paying Tk7 for a product that only cost Tk1 to make.
The report said that the newspaper collected the retail price tags of a couple of foreign brands and they show hefty profit margins on RMG products.
It revealed that one of the tags, taken from a polo shirt of a US retailer, shows a retail price of $42 (Tk3,475) even though the item cost only around $3.30 (Tk273) from its manufacturer in Bangladesh.
NBR chief questions accuracy of GFI report on money laundering
National Board of Revenue Chairman Md Nojibur Rahman raised questions about the accuracy of Global Financial Integrity’s (GFI) report on illicit financial outflows from Bangladesh, English language daily Dhaka Tribune reported.
The news report said that the Washington-based research and advisory organisation GFI on Monday released the report, which said that unrecorded capital flow from Bangladesh stood at $61.63bn between 2005 and 2014, riding mostly on misinvoicing.
Replying to a question on $9.1bn estimated illicit financial outflows from Bangladesh in 2014, NBR Chairman on Wednesday said: “We are examining the GFI report on money laundering though there are questions about the methodology of the report which did not clearly mention the sources of information.”
