RMG workers’ minimum wage fixed at Tk 1,662.00

Garment industry is controlled by the transfer of production. The globalisation of garment production started earlier and has expanded more than that of any other factory. The companies have transferred their blue-collar production activities from high-wage areas to low-cost manufacturing regions in industrialising countries. The enhancement of communication system and networking has played a key role in this development. Export-oriented manufacturing has brought some good returns to the industrialising nations of Asia and Latin America since the 1960s. The first relocation of garment manufacturing took place from North America and Western Europe to Japan in the 1950s and the early 1960s. But during 1965 and 1983, Japan changed its attention to more lucrative products like cars, stereos and computers and therefore, 400,000 workers were dismissed by Japanese textile and clothing industry. In impact, the second stock transfer of garment manufacturing was from Japan to the Asian Tigers - South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in 1970s. But the tendency of transfer of manufacturing did not remain there. The rise in labour charge and activeness of trade unions were in proportion to the enhancement in economies of the Asian Tigers. The industry witnessed a third transfer of manufacturing from 1980s to 1990s; from the Asian Tigers to other developing countries - Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China in particular. The 1990s have been led by the final group of exporters including Bangladesh, Srilanka, Pakistan and Vietnam. But China was leader in the current of the relocation as in less than ten years (after 1980s) China emerged from nowhere to become the world's major manufacturer and exporter of clothing.