DHAKA: Bangladeshi garment makers on Thursday sought policy support to immediately relocate their factories to purpose-made buildings to ensure workers’ safety.

“We are under pressure to relocate hazardous factories to safer places in bids to continue exports globally,” said Atiqul Islam, president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

In the last six months, global retailers cancelled orders worth around $110 million from 57 factories housed in shared buildings, he said at a pre-budget discussion with the National Board of Revenue at the tax administrator’s office in Dhaka.

So far, BGMEA has shut production at 13 risky buildings in and around Dhaka during factory inspection, he added. “It is an urgent need to relocate the factories from faulty buildings. So we want duty waivers for building materials.”

The government currently imposes 61 per cent duty on the import of pre-fabricated building materials, he said. “So we want a 100pc waiver on such items to minimise the relocation costs.”

Bangladesh is now the second largest garment exporter after China.