1. Rana Plaza One Year On
Comhlámh
12 Parliament Street, Dublin, 2
27 May 2014
Dr. Conor McCabe
UCD School of Social Justice

4. Bangladesh
Independence in 1971 – went from public-
sector led import-substituting regime to
one characterized by measures to
promote the private sector and export-led
activities.
Institutional policies – privatization of
public sector, reduction in the number of
sectors reserved for public investment,
relaxation of rules and procedures for
foreign investment
Incentive policies – trade liberalization
and tariff rationalization, financial sector
reforms, export subsidies, corporate tax
rebates – dine in part to attract foreign
investment
1980 – establishment of an export
processing zone in Chittagong, Bangladesh

5. The idea of an export processing zone was
suggested to Bangladesh President, Ziaur
Rahman in 1976 by the then president of the
World Bank, Robert McNamara
The idea did not come out of an internal
debate within the state – in fact, elements
within the state were suspicious of foreign
investment.
The foreign investment side won through and
in 1978 the National Economic Council
approved the establishment of a zone in
South Halishahar, Chittagong.
It opened in 1980 with limited incentives, and
became fully operational in 1984.
The export processing zone in Dhaka was
opened in 1993.

6. The creation of a Third World
female industrial work force
"took off" in the 1960s and by
the 1980s was a major
phenomenon in dozens of
Asian, Latin American and
African societies. -
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/art
icle/third-world-women-factories
the executives of certain types of manufacturing companies began to worry about the
increasing unionization of their own previously unorganized women workers [in the
West] and the consequent pressures for better working conditions and more reasonable
wages.
These companies operated in some of the most intensely competitive industrial sectors
and survived by substituting cheap labour for expensive equipment.
Top priority was given to minimizing labour costs. In fact, minimizing labour costs was
the chief reason why factory workforces were women in the first place. [Western
workforce was replaced by Asian, Latin American and African workforce.]
Firms that deliberately adopted these labour practices were manufacturers of toys,
textiles, garments, footwear, electronics and processed foods.

7. At about the same time international lending
and aid agencies such as the International
Monetary Fund urged elites in Third World
countries to increase the production of
foreign financed industrial goods for export
in order to offset their increasing imbalances
of payments - imbalances that were growing
in the 1970s due to the higher price of
imported oil, private purchases of foreign
luxury goods for local elites and government
purchases of expensive weaponry to bolster
nervous regimes.
Out of these discussions - typical all-male
affairs - came the formula for development
now referred to as Export Processing Zones
(EPZs).
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublica
tions/csq/article/third-world-women-
factories

8. In the twenty years from 1970 to 1990, the number of textile, clothing and footwear
(TCF) workers increased by 597 percent in Malaysia; 416 percent in Bangladesh; 385
percent in Sri Lanka; 334 percent in Indonesia; 271 percent in the Philippines; and 137
percent in Korea.
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/media-centre/press-releases/WCMS_008075/lang--en/index.htm