The owner of TopShop has joined other retailers including Primark and H&M in signing up to a deal on better safety checks in Bangladesh aimed at preventing any repeats of the building collapse that left more than 1,000 workers dead.
The Bangladesh High Commissioner has condemned international companies for “haggling over every cent” in the aftermath of the catastrophic factory collapse in Dhaka.
Mohamed Mijarul Quayes said the attitudes of firms trading with the country “has a negative impact on the terms of employment and on work conditions”.
He told ITV News: “We have seen the buyers when they travel to Bangladesh.
“They go round these manufacturers and they negotiate every cent of it and, at the end of the day, they place their order with those who give them the most economy in terms of cents.
“That’s a pity because if you are cutting a cent here, then you are cutting a cent across the entire production chain.”
A young woman has been freed from the wreckage of a building in the Bangladeshi capital 17 days after its collapse killed hundreds.
The Bangladesh High Commissioner has told me he believes that Western companies share some of the blame for conditions in Dhaka's factories.
Primark, who bought products from the factories in the destroyed Rana Plaza in Dhaka, will pay compensation to the families of the victims.