BGMEA President Rubana Huq has stated the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a platform of European fashion brands and buyers, will no more terminate ties with any readymade garment factory without consulting the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

BGMEA and the Accord would establish a technical sub-committee of experts to generate and recommend additional solutions that enable suppliers to implement fire related corrective action plans. The Accord would write its signatory brands in order to discourage punitive measures for any stage 1 and stage 2 escalations. The BGMEA also informed its members that the trade body would send a questionnaire to all factories to develop baseline data for ensuring boiler safety in the RMG units. The BGMEA would be responsible of developing knowledge to inform the Accord and RMG Sustainability Council to prepare for rolling out the boiler safety inspections under the RSC.

Representatives of the BGMEA and the steering committee of Accord met in Dhaka recently to discuss the establishment of the RMG Sustainability Council as previously agreed in the MoU on 8 May 2019. The parties discussed a wide range of issues to ensure a smooth transition of the Accord and its functions (related to inspections, remediation, training and safety complaints mechanism) to the RSC by the end of May 2020. After the Rana Plaza building collapse on April 24, 2013, that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garments workers, EU retailers formed the Accord undertaking a five-year plan, which set timeframes and accountability for inspections and training and workers empowerment programmes.