Business & Economy
Quotas go, 'spot audits' by
US textile buyers begin
What is India News Service, Monday, 3 January 2005, 2000 hrs IST
Textile exporters better be on their guard. Big US retailers such as Wal-Mart and JC Penney have started conducting `spot audits' on their Indian suppliers to check instances of child labour and ensure that labour standards being used conform to stipulated norms.
According to industry sources, these checks are, over and above, the mandatory social audits conducted annually by the bigger retailers on their supplier base in India and other countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Inspection teams representing the US retailers in the country, or their respective agents stationed here, are conducting checks on the facilities of their suppliers and the inspections are expected to gather momentum as the decades-old quotas get phased out, industry representatives said.
"Bigger retailers in the US and the EU are extremely conscious of any adverse publicity, especially with quotas having been phased out," a KSA Technopak executive said.
According to an industry expert, the `sweat shop' issue has always been a sensitive subject in developed markets and retailers in the developed countries are taking a safe approach, since outsourcing has been raised as a big issue by domestic industry lobbies in the developed markets.
"With concerns that swelling textile imports from China and India are going to destroy whatever is left of the US textile industries, a number of industry bodies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the US are expected to be on high alert to check issues such as labour conditions at suppliers' facilities," an industry player said.
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