As the readymade garment industry of Bangladesh got back to work, it has now emerged that fashion retailers in UK alone cancelled a massive £2.5 billion worth work orders in the country.
This has come as a major blow to the sector, which has been struggling in face of the onslaught of coronavirus outbreak that has forced the garment makers to halt operations for long before resuming work on a limited scale from Sunday.
According to reports, among the prominent names that have cancelled work orders are Day’s Peacocks, Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia, New Look, Asda and Debenhams.
New Look, which initially cancelled 20 per cent of its orders from Bangladesh, has now reportedly reinstated around £6.8 million worth of business while Asda is said to have cancelled around 5 per cent of orders from Bangladeshi suppliers.
Peacocks, too, has accepted that it has cancelled orders but did not specify the volume of it.
These large-scale order cancellations by the high-street retailers in UK have led Bangladesh’s trade envoy to UK, Rushanara Ali who is also the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, to write to the UK Government on this.
Rushanara wrote in her letter to Chancellor Rishi Sunak, naming the retailers and calling upon him to help reinstate the cancelled orders.
