LAHORE, Sept 13: The Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (Prgmea) has offered Sindh and Punjab governments its cooperation for undertaking inspections of factories of its member companies in order to ensure enforcement of international labour safety standards and labour rights.

Speaking to Dawn on Thursday, Prgmea chief coordinator Ijaz Khokhar expressed deep concern over the loss of life of around 260 factory workers in a garment factory in Karachi and 21 in a shoe factory in Lahore.

“The enforcement of labour safety standards and laws is in the best interest of the factory owners as well as for exports from Pakistan.

Therefore, we are ready to lend our fullest cooperation to the provincial governments in Sindh and Punjab for evolving a mechanism for inspection of our manufacturing facilities for ensuring complete safety of our workers,” he said.

He pointed out that majority of factory owners took adequate measures for ensuring safety of their workers at their facilities to comply with the social and other requirements of their foreign buyers.

“The non-compliance of labour safety standards can hurt our business. Hence, majority of the manufacturers voluntarily took such measures,” he said.

He said the foreign buyers from across the world had expressed their grief over the Karachi incident.

“The buyers are deeply concerned over implementation of international labour safety laws in the exporting countries because of pressure of consumers in Europe and the United States. The manufacturers and exporters cannot ignore this as non-compliance of social, environmental and labour standards will cost them future orders,” he said.

He said the government should amend the Factories Act if it is required to ensure international safety standards at the manufacturing facilities.