Foreign companies with nationals working in Bangladesh’s garment and building industries have suspended travel to the country and told workers there to stay at home after a deadly attack by Muslim militants on a restaurant in Dhaka on Friday.
The hospitality sector is also seeing cancelations, hotels are tightening security and foreign embassies are looking at reducing staffing after the attack claimed the lives of nine Italians, seven Japanese, an American, an Indian and several Bangladeshis.
Fast Retailing Co, the Japanese owner of the Uniqlo casual-wear brand, said it would suspend all but critical travel to Bangladesh and had told staff there to stay indoors.
Photo: AFP
Bangladesh’s US$26 billion garment industry has been bracing for the fallout of Friday’s killings, fearing major retailers from Uniqlo to Marks and Spencer and Gap could rethink their sourcing plans after the latest attack targeting foreigners.
One of the world’s poorest countries, Bangladesh relies on garments for about 80 percent of its exports and for about 4 million jobs, and ranks behind only China as a supplier of clothes to developed markets like Europe and the US.
Uniqlo has 10 Japanese staff in Bangladesh, one of its major production hubs outside China, and was among the first to confirm it would tighten travel restrictions already in place after attacks last year.
“There’ll definitely be an impact on the garment industry,” said Sudhir Dhingra, head of Orient Craft, based in Gurgaon, India. “I was just speaking to a top label which said its official who was supposed to visit Bangladesh to inspect an order has refused to go.”
Bangladeshi garment exporters who dealt with some of those killed in Friday’s attack were still coming to terms with what had happened.
“I was doing business with six of the nine Italians who died. It’s shocking and heartbreaking,” Wega Fashion Sweater Pvt Ltd managing director Meshba Uddin Ali said.
Amos Ho, a senior manager at Pou Chen Corp (寶成工業), one of the world’s largest makers of trainers for brands like Nike, Adidas and Puma, said: “We’ve urged our employees to be cautious. They have to pay attention to their personal safety.”
Industry analysts have suggested clothing brands might consider shifting out of Bangladesh to less unsettled countries in Asia, such as Cambodia and Sri Lanka.
No major companies have yet signaled official plans.
“There are no plans on changing any sourcing, but we are following developments closely,” Sweden’s H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB said in a statement on Sunday.
Several others companies, including French retail group Auchan Holding, German clothing company Kik Textilien and European family-owned clothing retailer C&A, said they were monitoring the situation closely, but had not made any plans to stop working in the country.
Both the US and UK embassies in Bangladesh might reduce staff numbers, one diplomatic source said, and ask only essential staff to stay on.
Japanese construction companies Obayashi Corp and Shimizu Corp, both with more than a dozen employees working on bridge projects in Bangladesh, said they advised staff to stay indoors.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure