bangladesh news and archive

Sourcing: How the pandemic is affecting global fashion supply chains

The Corona pandemic has hit the apparel industry’s global supply chains hard. How are they recovering? What changes will the pandemic bring? Clothing manufacturers, sourcing platforms and buyers talk about their expectations for the future and whether they believe in the nearshoring trend. Cancellations: premium manufacturers profit In...

11 Aug 2020

Business

Support garment workers affected by Covid-19

The ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh has been particularly hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. USD 1.5 billion of business has already been lost and 1.2 million garment workers’ livelihoods have been impacted. Many factories have been shut down indefinitely and workers were given only 23 days of salary as severance or sometimes none at...

18 Jun 2020

Fashion

30 percent of global fashion businesses will not survive the crisis

30 percent of the world’s biggest fashion companies, including household name brands and department stores, will not survive the pandemic crisis. The findings come from McKinsey’s updated State of Fashion Report, which said the average market capitalization of apparel, fashion, and luxury players dropped almost 40 percent between the start of...

19 May 2020

Retail

Bangladesh commerce minister urges UK government to support suppliers

Bangladesh commerce minister Tipu Munshi has called on the UK government to take action to stop retailers cancelling orders and prevent the potential widespread closure of factories that it could lead to. Bangladesh, which is the world's second largest garment exporter behind China, employs approximately four million workers in around 4,000...

28 Apr 2020

Business INTERVIEW

First hand fast-fashion nightmare for Bangladeshi clothing makers

One day Parvin was toiling to meet the fast-fashion demands of European capitals, the next she was among hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi clothes workers made instantly jobless as the coronavirus pandemic struck. Big-name international brands have cancelled billions of dollars in orders because of the pandemic, decimating Bangladesh's most...

17 Apr 2020

Business

Bangladesh unions urge government to protect workers

As Western countries continue to cancel factory orders with stores closed and e-commerce only doing so much to level off money lost from brick-and-mortar, Bangladesh's garment workers are getting let go left and right as the factories they work at continue to lose revenue by the day. To help ameliorate some of the financial struggles these...

15 Apr 2020

Business IN DEPTH

Abandoned? The impact of Covid-19 on factories and garment workers

There are few jobs that are as unpredictable and dangerous as that of a garment worker. When things are going well and orders come in, it means time pressure, piecework, verbal and physical abuse at the workplace and still no living wage. When things are not going well, it means cancelled orders leading to job loss, no severance package, no...

6 Apr 2020

Business

Bangladesh set to lose 6 billion dollars in export revenue

As the world's second largest apparel producer after China, Bangladesh is feeling the ripple effects of the fashion industry which has been heavily hit by coronavirus. The country is expected to lose 6 billion dollars this year from cancelled orders from major fashion retailers. The news was reported by Reuters. Cancellation orders continue to...

1 Apr 2020

Fashion

The unseen victims of fashion's multi-billion dollar order cancellations

As storesclose worldwide in a bid to curb the growth of the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for clothing has inevitably plummeted, resulting in scores of fashion brands cancelling huge orders of clothing, many of which have already been produced by suppliers. According to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), 1.4...

1 Apr 2020

Business

Bangladesh workers face largest crackdown on their rights in 2019

Though much has changed for the better in Bangladesh’s garment industry - thefirst ever factory mapwas published in February, for example, leading the way to more transparency in the supply chain - 2019 was also the year of crackdowns on workers and their rights - as many as 11,600 workers were dismissed without legal justification, most of whom...

25 Dec 2019

Business

Garment unions and Clean Clothes Campaign concerned about deal on Bangladesh Accord

Trade union leaders are not pleased with theannouncementthat the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety is supposed to leave the country in less than a year. The Bangladesh Accord shall be replaced in 281 days by another entity called RMC Sustainability Council (RSC), to be governed by a board comprising representatives of the Bangladesh...

21 May 2019

Business

Rana Plaza: a tragedy remembered

Six years ago, on 24th April 2013, 1,138 garment workers in Bangladesh lost their lives, ultimately because of an industry that placed deadlines and profits before human lives. Rana Plaza, the building that housed five garment factories among other establishments, had not evacuated those who toiled for the least: garment workers barely making...

26 Apr 2019