Italian fashion retailer Benetton has announced it will pay $US1.1 million ($A1.41 million) into an international fund to compensate victims of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh two years ago in which 1138 people died.
Benetton, which initially denied using any firms located in the nine-story factory complex which workers and local journalists had warned was unsafe before it collapsed with thousands of people inside, said on Friday it was donating double the amount advised by experts.
"We have decided to go further to demonstrate very clearly how deeply we care," Benetton Group chief executive Marco Airoldi said in a statement.
Benetton commissioned experts at consulting firm PwC to estimate how it much it should contribute to an international compensation fund based on the level of its commercial association with the Rana Plaza, which collapsed on April 24, 2013.
Benetton said the experts, using a report prepared by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), concluded it should contribute $500,000 of the $30 million the Rana Plaza Trust Fund is seeking to raise.
"Whilst there is no real redress for the tragic loss of life we hope that this robust and clear mechanism for calculating compensation could be used more widely," said Airoldi, adding it was making PwC report publicly available to all stakeholders.
Benetton said the contribution will take its total to $1.6 million as it also helped the victims via its own support program in partnership with the Bangladeshi non-governmental organisation BRAC.
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