Bangladesh Garment Buying House Association(BGBA) has claimed to reopen the garment factories while the risk of infection of COVID-19 is still present.
BGBA said the other opponent nations are gradually opening their businesses. Besides the demand for wear is increasing worldwide, if we do not open our factories, these contracts will be transferred to other countries.
Chairman of BGBA, Kazi Iftekhar Hossain has given a letter to the principal secretary of the honorable Prime Minister, claiming to open the garment factories for business. In that letter, he recommended taking serious plans to follow the health regulations in the garment sector and to reopen transportation in a narrower way to retain the state of our garment business in the export sector.
According to BGBA, garment buying houses and garment factories have been stopped from the last one month of lockdown due to coronavirus. Due to that reason, millions of workers and officers are nearly jobless. Buying house owners and trade businessmen are living an insecure livelihood.
The leaders of BGMEA and BKMEA have notified that the process of restarting the factories has been started. They are assuming to open the factories gradually from 26th April after observing the state of corona infection. Finally from 2nd May all the factories will remain open and in that case, the government will help owners of the industries.
1st vice president of BKMEA Mohammad Hatem has said they are working on this issue. The decision may be finalized within next Wednesday.
The honorable prime minister said in a teleconference with the authorities about the issue of opening the factories of Gazipur she said, “this is an industrial belt, we are aiming to open some factories, especially those which are based on export purpose.”
The PM said, “manufacturing should be continued even in a limited way in this lockdown period. We have to ensure how to do that. We have to follow the directions of WHO in this context.” She again said, “ the month of Ramadan is coming, we cannot keep these people jobless. Some factories are needed to remain open. But it’s not recommended to bring them all at a stretch, rather it has to be managed to bring them in a limited way under due protection.”
On the last 6th April after huge criticism, BGMEA and BKMEA on their joint statement declared that the factories will remain closed until 14th April according to the direction of the government.
Factories were recommended to remain open who have emergency export due or who are manufacturing personal protection equipment, masks etc. in that case, the concerned business organization(BGMEA, BKMEA), DIFE, and industrial police have to be informed. Later on, BGMEA and BKMEA decided to extend the closure of the factories till 25th April.
