Dhaka, Nov 26 The fire in the multi-storied Tazreen Fashions has dealt a big blow to the image of Bangladesh as the readymade garment industry is under scrutiny of global buyers, economist Debapriya Bhattacharya believes.
"The incident is not good for Bangladesh's image," he said at the launch of UNCTAD's LDCs (Least Developed Countries) Report 2012 at the Centre For Policy Dialogue (CPD) office on Monday.
A devastating fire that swept through Tazreen Fashions in the Ashulia industrial belt near capital Dhaka on Saturday has left at least 110 people dead.
"We have to carefully watch if there is any downward change in the buying orders and attitude of consumers towards Bangladeshi products," he added.
The CPD Distinguished Fellow said such incidents would happen again unless full-fledged trade union was not introduced in the factories.
"The readymade garment sector is passing through a transformation of high wages for better productivity to produce high-end products but such type of incidents will make things complicated."
The GSP hearing at US Congress would weaken the case of Bangladesh due to this type of incidents, Bhattacharya said.
US-based labour organisation AFL–CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) has put forward a motion before the Congress to scrap generalized system of preference (GSP) for Bangladesh.
Bangladesh exports about $100 million worth of products under the GSP facility.
CPD Executive Director Mostafizur Rahman said two committees have been formed to investigate the matter and they should produce concrete report to address such incidents.
"We have seen probe committees before but no action was taken. This time it (the incident) should not have happened," he added.
The incidents happened when Bangladesh was trying to retain the second position as RMG exporters and global buyers came to Dhaka to buy more, he said.
"Everybody is observing how the government addresses the incident," he added.
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