European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht has expressed his desire to visit Bangladesh next month to review Compact Sustainability – a joint initiative to improve labour conditions in the apparel industry of the country.
“He wants to come to Dhaka in July as the Compact was launched on July 8 last year,” Commercial Counsellor at Bangladesh mission in Brussels Tapan Kanti Ghosh told the Dhaka Tribune.
“We have requested the commerce ministry to fix a date but are yet to get any confirmation from the ministry,” he said. Gucht, a Belgian politician looking after trade issue for the 28-member bloc, will lead an EU delegation and is expected to meet all the stakeholders in the country.
“There is a provision in the Compact that a review of the initiative would be held in 2014 and it would be better if he attends the review meeting as Bangladesh can explain its expectation from the EU,” Ghosh said.
Gucht launched the Compact for improving conditions for workers in Bangladeshi garment factories in the backdrop of the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar in April last year, resulting in over 1,100 deaths.
The Compact Sustainability seeks to improve labour, health and safety conditions for workers as well as to encourage responsible behaviour by business in the ready-made garment industry in the country. The main features of the Compact is to reform labour laws, recruit 200 additional inspectors by 2013 and improve building and fire safety by June this year.
The EU had on many occasions earlier reminded Bangladesh of implementing the mutually agreed roadmap to improve the security of readymade garment factories to avert a serious consequence in its export trade. The EU has extended its duty-free quota-free market access under Everything but Arms facility for next 10 years.
It is Bangladesh’s leading trading partner with total exports to the EU amounted to €9.2bn in 2012, which represents about 10% of the country’s GDP.
