Benetton admits it made clothes in illegal Bangladesh factory that collapsed killing 900 workers

Chief executive Biagio Chiarolanza said company bought shirts from factory

Eight-storey building in Dhaka collapsed two weeks ago killing almost 900



Chiarolanza said supplier had subcontracted two orders to New Wave Style

Said Benetton and other brands can help improve conditions in the country



Comes as eight people confirmed dead after blaze at Dhaka sweater factory

Fire swept through the first, second and third floors of 11-storey building



Raises further concerns about safety of £13billion garment industry



The head of Benetton has admitted it had links to the garment factory that collapsed last month killing almost 900 people.



Biagio Chiarolanza, chief executive of the label, said the company bought shirts from New Wave Style, which was based at the building in capital Dhaka.



Benetton is the latest company to admit links to the Rana Plaza building.

Biagio Chiarolanza, Benetton chief executive, admitted the company had links to the Rana Plaza building that collapsed last month

Authorities are still clearing the site and recovering more bodies. The death toll has now reached 892

Primark operated a floor of the eight-storey building and other garment makers inside the factory included suppliers to Matalan and Mango.



Mr Chiarolanza told The Huffington Post that Benetton plan to stay in Bangladesh despite concerns over factory safety and work conditions in the country's £13billion garment industry.



Yesterday eight people were killed when a fire broke out at another clothes factory in Dhaka.



The death toll from the factory collapse reached 892, and it is not known how many more people may be buried under the rubble.



Dozens of bodies recovered yesterday were so decomposed they were being sent to a lab for DNA identification, police said.

Mr Chiarolanza said one of their direct Indian suppliers had subcontracted two orders to The New Wave company.



It supplied about 200,000 shirts that were made inside the building.



He added that one month before the collapse, Benetton had decided to stop using New Wave because it could not meet 'strict' quality and efficiency standards, according to The Huffington Post.



Benetton, Primark, Matalan and Mango all had connections to the unsafe eight-storey factory

The Benetton boss said it will not pull out of the country despite the increasing safety concerns

The chief executive said the solution to the safety issues was not to abandon Bangladesh.



He said: 'I spent some period of my life in this part of the world, and I believe - I really believe - Benetton and other international brands can help these countries improve their condition.



'But we need a safe and happy working environment and we need to have better conditions.'

Benetton was heavily criticised after the collapse and accused of paying sub-poverty level wages.



Mr Chiarolanza said they will now add more checks when assessing factories.



The owner of the building only had permission for a five storey structure and there is speculation that his exceeding that was the cause of the collapse.

More than 2,500 people were pulled from the rubble alive in the days following the disaster.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association earlier said 3,122 workers were employed at the five factories housed in the building, but it was not clear how many were there during the packed morning shift.

At least eight people have died in the fire that swept through a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh

A police officer and the factory's managing director were found dead after the blaze gutted the building

Police collect evidence from inside the gutted garment. It the latest disaster to hit the country's lucrative garment industry after more than 900 people died when a building collapsed

This morning eight people, including a police officer and the factory's managing director, were found dead after a blaze at an 11-storey clothes manufacturer in Dhaka.

Yesterday's blaze broke out shortly after about 300 workers at the Tung Hai Sweater factory went home for the day, fire official Nazrul Islam said.



It burned parts of the first and second floors, which housed the factory, and parts of the third, which housed apartments.

It was not immediately clear how many of the dead were tenants of the building.

Bhajan Kumar Sarkar, another fire official, said the managing director of the factory, Mahbubur Rahman, and a police official were among the dead. All the dead had been found in the stairwell.

Mr Sarkar said it took more than three hours to bring the blaze under control.

The fire at the Tung Hai Sweater factory started after most of the 300 workers had left for the day

A mound of burnt sweaters lies inside the factory. The fire spread through parts of the first and second floors The garment industry in Bangladesh is worth £13billion but concerns over safety have been raised recently

Following protests, authorities also began paying salaries and other benefits to survivors.

The European Union's delegation to Bangladesh urged the government to 'act immediately' to improve working conditions and authorities said the government had closed 18 clothes factories in recent days for failing to meet work and safety standards.

There is no clear indication of how many bodies still remain trapped in the debris because the exact number of people inside the building at the time of the collapse is unknown. More than 2,500 people were rescued alive.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association earlier said 3,122 workers were employed at the five factories housed in the building, but it was not clear how many were there during the packed morning shift when it collapsed.



Several stores and a bank were also in the building.

A ceiling fan has been burnt and melted by the heat of the devastating blaze in Mirpur

Factory workers wait outside the gutted 11-storey building that houses the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd The government had closed 18 clothes factories in recent days for failing to meet safety standards

Ratings agency Moody's said clothing factory disasters in Bangladesh and frequent, increasingly violent strikes posed risks to the country's credit rating.

It said political tension was damaging confidence in Bangladesh, which has a rating below investment grade.

A general strike was called earlier this week by opposition political parties to protest at the deaths of at least 29 people during street demonstrations.

Investor confidence in Bangladesh also dropped after the deadly factory blaze two weeks ago

Moody's says 'continued political tensions are credit negative because they may further damage investor confidence in Bangladesh against the background of recurrent industrial disasters in the ready-made garment sector'.

Bangladesh's rating from Moody's is Ba3, three notches below the lowest investment grade rating.



