DHAKA: Top retailers launched talks on Tuesday with Bangladesh factory owners and the government as part of a safety accord signed earlier this month following a deadly factory collapse.
Around 80 mainly European retailers, including Inditex and H&M, signed the legally-binding agreement, which stipulates inspection of all of their factory suppliers in Bangladesh to ensure they comply with safety standards.
A team of retailers and international unions are now visiting Dhaka to meet government officials, factory owners and professors of a top Bangladesh engineering university to lay the groundwork for the inspections, an official said.
"We're talking with all the stakeholders in an effort to implement the accord," Roy Ramesh, a member of the pact's steering committee, told AFP.
"We want input from the Bangladesh government, experts and the factory owners."
"There are a lot of technical, legal and logistical issues to discuss," said Ramesh, general secretary of Swiss-based IndustriALL.
IndustriALL and UNI Global Union stepped up pressure on Western retailers to sign the agreement after a nine-storey building, housing garment factories, crumbled on April 24 and killed 1,129 people.
Ramesh said at least 80 brands have signed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety to improve shocking factory conditions in Bangladesh.
A full list of factories to be inspected under the accord has not yet been released as more and more brands are joining the deal, Ramesh said.
Bangladesh is the world's second biggest apparel exporter, with its 4,500 garment factories accounting for 80 percent of its overseas shipments.
But the industry has been hit by a series of disasters since November when a deadly inferno killed 111 workers outside Dhaka, highlighting appalling safety conditions in the factories. (AFP)
