Bangladesh deserves all the commendation it gets for building a growing economy on the back of a successful RMG industry, but such stellar success also has its own set of ramifications. To that end, the government’s renewed call for ensuring fair prices for its RMG products in the European market is one that needs to be heard loud and clear by the export destination.
The comments were made between Bangladesh and the European Union (EU) during the 10th Joint Commission in Brussels, and the fact that the EU itself has responded positively to this proposal is a positive sign.
While Bangladesh has a strong and profitable RMG industry, the strategy that was employed to come this far is not sustainable, especially in the mid-to-late life cycle of this industry. Bangladesh will also be graduating from the Least Developed Country status soon, and we have a moral impetus to pay our workers a fair wage.
Alongside that, the RMG industry has gone far and wide in order to ensure its compliance with the safety protocols which the EU has outlined in the past. We are going the extra mile and making our factories greener, for example.
As such, by continuing to not pay our RMG factories fairer wages, European buyers are not only exploiting the people who make their products in the first place, but they are also hampering the development of an entire nation as well.
This cannot go on. European buyers not only have to start paying us fairly, but they also have to commit to their contracts, which has also been an increasingly worrying trend in the past few years.
As it stands, the RMG sector is the backbone of our economy, and the slightest hint of unfair practices from our buyers puts the whole nation at risk. The message needs to be gotten across: We need to be paid fairly and we need to be paid fast.
