The government of Bangladesh has granted permission to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety to continue operating in the country beyond May of 2018. This comes just weeks after a Bangladesh court denied the Accord permission to continue its work because it said the group had not sought proper government approval to do so.

Authorities in China have shut down an estimated 40% of all the country’s factories at some point over the past few months in order to undergo government-mandated environmental inspections. Over 80,000 of those facilities have been hit with fines and criminal offenses for environmental violations found. The effort is part of an unprecedented crackdown on

A delegation from India’s Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) recently conveyed concerns expressed by Indian garment exporters over the new Goods and Services Tax scheme (GST). AEPC leaders said that the GST is “burdensome” and “stressful” to many small and medium enterprises due to increases in working capital and higher transaction costs, among other factors.

Myanmar’s garment exports are likely to top US$3 billion this fiscal year, according to new data from the Myanmar Garment Entrepreneurs Association (MGEA). The European Union is the top buyer of garments from the country, followed by Japan and South Korea. Garments account for an estimated 16% of the country’s total exports. (Fibre2Fashion)

A new study from Spanish sustainable textile group Renewable Resources says that global garment manufacturers waste an estimated 25% of their input resources each year. The report says the problem is a symptom of conflicting business interests facing many facilities as well as a lack of data and transparency between stakeholders within global supply chains.

Over 3,000 migrant workers from Myanmar working at a Thai footwear factory recently staged a protest against their employer after the company allegedly took 12,500 Thai Baht (US$375) from their paychecks to pay for their Certificates of Identity (CI). Thai labor authorities say they facilitated a meeting between the workers and factory management after the

Several major U.S. apparel and textile trade bodies have come together to launch a new initiative aimed at educating policymakers about the economic impact that the textile and apparel industry has on the United States. The “U.S. Global Value Chain Coalition” will advocate, educate, conduct research, and engage on policies that support American employees and

The Bangladesh Readymade Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) is pushing the government to withdraw the “tax at source” for the industry over the next 2 fiscal years and asking for a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 10% from the current proposal of 15%. BGMEA officials say the moves are necessary to ensure

China’s government rejected a request made by the U.S. State Department to release three labor activists detained last week while investigating a factory that produced footwear for the fashion brand of Ivanka Trump, daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump. Chinese officials say they instead want to enforce a “cone of silence” around the detainees and

A recently-imposed restriction on the sale of cows and buffalo for slaughter has raised concerns both from local leather producers in India and the international apparel brands who source leather from the country. Late last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government issued a decree saying that cattle could only be sold for agricultural purposes like