"The readymade garment sector, in collaboration with top international organisations, has already established a unique culture of corporate responsibility by taking children out of factories and putting them in educational and vocational institutes to acquire skills necessary to develop their full potentials," he said.

Khosru was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of the 6th Asia-Pacific High-level Employers' Conference at Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka yesterday.

He said several other sectors needed to take up similar programmes to save the children engaged in "the worst forms of child labour".

The commerce minister said globalisation is yet to be equitable because the least developed countries (LDCs) continue to find it difficult to have their due share in the world market. "The share of LDCs in world trade shows a marked decline -- from 0.7 per cent in the 1980s to 0.4 per cent in the 1990s -- and the slide continues."

Referring to the latest World Investment Report compiled by the UNCTAD (United Nations Confe-rence on Trade and Development), he said FDIs only flowed to a handful of developing countries while LDCs were left out of the process.

The minister urged employers' organisations of developed Asian countries to help their counterparts in small countries like Bangladesh frame a corporate code of conduct based on Asian values and culture and with a view to gaining social confidence on businesses.

Bangladesh Employers' Federation (BEF) in collaboration with International Labour Organisation (ILO), International Organisation of Employees (IOE), Geneva, and Japan Business Federation (JBF) is organising the three-day conference.

Other speakers at the conference included Francois Perigot, president of IOE, Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of JBF, Yasuyuki Nodera, regional director of ILO (Asia-Pacific), Amanullah Aman, state minister for labour and employment, and CK Hyder, secretary general of BEF.

Francois Perigot said businessmen should take up the challenge to fulfill people's expectations. "We must face these challenges. Consumers, on the other hand, should also realise that some demands will remain unfulfilled."

Yasuyuki Nodera said globalisation has generated some misunderstandings as well as fears.

BEF President M Anis Ud Dowla who chaired the conference said businesses couldn't afford to remain indifferent to social expectations. At the same time, he said, businesses need to have the organisational ability to resist undue demands from special interest groups including some foreign buyers who impose compliance requirements one after another.

"Many of these buyers also tend to go elsewhere after suppliers have spent time and money fulfilling their requirements," he observed.

CK Hyder said free trade should be fair and equitable, but the fact that it hasn't been so is alarming. "Often there are trade barriers. These issues need to be addressed."

A total of 100 delegates from 21 countries are participating in the conference.