BGMEA President Faruque Hassan has underscored the need for more collaboration between industry and academia to support development of the RMG industry especially by identifying areas of improvement and capacity enhancement and providing with knowledge and skills required to address future challenges. 

The need for industry-academia, now more than ever before, is because of the changing dynamics of the industry, he said. 

Faruque Hassan made remarks during a meeting with Peter Lund-Thomsen, Professor at Copenhagen Business School, and Gavin Bridge, Professor at Durham University, held at BGMEA’s PR office in Gulshan, Dhaka on March 23.

BGMEA Vice President Miran Ali was also present at the meeting. 

The professors apprised the BGMEA President that Copenhagen Business School, Durham University and Brac University are collaboratively conducting research on climate change  especially in the area of climate action. The initiative is funded by the Danida Fellowship Centre.

They sought active collaboration with BGMEA to create academic reference documentation of the Bangladesh RMG industry.

In this research they intend to document the strides of the industry in the areas of safety, sustainability, green factories.

BGMEA President Faruque Hasaan said the RMG industry has made exemplary achievements in terms of workplace safety, environmental sustainability and workers’ well-being. 

“However, many of these encouraging stories are not told enough to the world. Here industry-academia collaboration can play a vital role in documenting these success stories to create a counter narrative of the industry which will not only help to remove misconceptions and negative perception about the sector but also inspire others to follow them,” he said. 

He assured the professors of all-out support from BGMEA to conduct their research on the RMG industry of Bangladesh. 

Faruque Hassan sought their cooperation to promote the apparel industry of Bangladesh.