The Bangladesh ready-made garment (RMG) industry has gradually been adopting new business models or innovative plans to address the challenges surfaced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, says a report by BGMEA.

Titled ,'A Pathway to Manage Private Sector Impact on Bangladesh National Priority Indicators (NPIs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)m ' the report also showed that the RMG industry not only contributed to economic development, but was also directly engaged in achieving nine SDGs.

The report was published in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

The report showed how the RMG sector was not only contributing to the country's macro-economic performance, but also to achieving NPIs and SDGs by creating employment, supporting healthcare of its workforce, making investments in up-skilling the workforce, adopting resource recycling, and increasingly using renewable energy.

About 13 per cent of the surveyed RMG factories furloughed workers because of the financial losses that they incurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the report.

Some 24 per cent of the factories reported that they had COVID-affected workers, and the workers returned to work within an average of 25 days upon submission of coronavirus negative test reports.

According to findings, all the participating factories had an environment management system, and 42 per cent of these had set measurable goals to reduce energy, waste and resource consumption by 2.0 to 15 per cent in the next three years.