DHAKA: Last year’s Rana Plaza disaster is the second deadliest incident in South Asia after Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in India`s Bhopal industrial accident, which killed nearly 2000.

The Rana Plaza disaster killed 1,136 and 2,438 workers had been rescued alive.

In order to assist the readymade garment (RMG) factories to recoup the loss owing to Rana Plaza accident, the Bangladesh government paid nearly 280 million taka to the victims and their surviving families while individuals and foundations paid nearly 15 million taka.

In addition, government reduced export tariff on RMG exports to 0.5% only.

Many EU countries under International Labour Organization (ILO) agreed to provide $24.5 million to the victims and also for improvement of safety and security of garment workplaces.

Bangladesh government also reduced import tariff on fire extinguishers and other equipments to help improve safety and security of factories.

The Garments Manufacturers and Owners Association (BGMEA) raised the minimum wages of garment workers by over 80% in one year.

Since 2009, garment workers’ wages increased by almost 300% in Bangladesh from $23 to $68 now.

In New York, the Optimist, a tax-exempt 501(C)(3) organization collected sponsors to help educate sons and daughters of Rana Plaza victims.

Among many others, from school children to government agencies came forward to help Bangladesh Rana Plaza victims.

While talking to banglanews24.com, Dr. Abdul Momen, ambassador and permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations said it was expected that USA would also rise to occasion and would grant `tariff-free access of Bangladesh garments to USA` to help the 4 million poor women and girl workers in Bangladesh garments sector.

Unfortunately, they did not rise to the occasion to help humanity, the distressed and the vulnerable as well, Dr Momen regrets.

Instead, they cancelled the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) facility to Bangladesh garment factories.

The USA charges nearly 15%-17% tariff on garment imports from Bangladesh while it charges, for example, 0.5% tariff for imports from France.

This means, France, a rich  country pays only 50 cent for its $100 exports to USA, Bangladesh, which belongs to the Least Developed Countries (LDC) pays $17 per $100 export to USA; 34 times higher.

Bangladesh pays nearly $900 million each year to USA as tariff while it receives about $100m annually from USA with a lot of advices.

BDST: 1900 HRS, APR 24, 2014