“The Low Price” of the textile discounter KiK – consequences for labour conditions in textile factories in Bangladesh: Difference between revisions

The “Agreement on Textiles and Clothing” of the World Trade Organisation (ATC) in 1995 was designed to avoid the massive export of clothes produced in emerging and developing countries to industrial countries.<ref>Globalisierung. Author: PD Dr. Norman Backhaus. Published by Prof. Dr. Rainer Duttmann, Prof. Dr. Rainer Glawion, Prof. Herbert Popp, Prof. Dr. Rita Schneider-Sliwa. Published in Westermann Bildungshaus Schulbuchverlage, Braunschweig 2009, page 171.</ref> The ATC restricted the imports of textiles and clothing through quotas. Huge garment producers and exporters like China, India or Hong Kong were affected by these quotas. Bangladesh was not affected, because it was a very poor developing country and therefore took its chance and established a growing textile industry. The exports of clothes rose from 600 million US dollars in 1990 to about eight billion US dollars in 2006.<ref name="A" /> The export products of Bangladesh shifted from raw material, like jute, and jute products (90%) to clothes based on cotton. “The textile and clothing industry now accounts for 76% of the total export volume of Bangladesh.”<ref name="A" /> Fishery (7%) and the raw material jute (5%) are the two other important export-products of Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi economy today is very strong orientated on the textile industry. That may cause problems if the export declines and of cause if the needed raw material for clothing cotton gets expensive. Cotton is not cultivated in Bangladesh itself therefore it must be imported before it can be part of the garment production. As the “Agreement on Textiles and Clothing” phased out in 2005, many experts were afraid of a possible collapse of the Bangladeshi textile industry because they now had to compete against China and India for gaining orders. Bangladesh has managed to sustain their contract partners from the EU and USA because the production at Bangladesh is possible at an “extremely low wage level”.<ref name="A" /> <br><br>