Scores of experts hired by global brands under an accord Wednesday launched mass inspection of clothing factories in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, officials said.

They said giant global clothing brands such as Primark, Loblaw, Joe Fresh, Gap, Wal-Mart, Nike, Tchibo, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger under the Accord have initiated the inspection after a series of deadly incidents in the country's garment sector in the recent years brought workers' safety and labor violations in Bangladesh to world glare.

The Accord, which has been signed by over 150 apparel corporations from 20 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia; two global trade unions, IndustriALL and UNI; and numerous Bangladeshi unions, is an independent agreement designed to make all garment factories in Bangladesh safe workplaces.

The legally binding agreement includes independent safety inspections at factories and public reporting of the results of these inspections.

Where safety issues are identified, retailers commit to ensuring that repairs are carried out, that sufficient funds are made available to do so, and that workers at these factories continue to be paid a salary.

Officials say some hundreds of apparel factories will be inspected in the first phase.

"We've started inspection from today at the Accord brand producing factories," Accord Spokesman Rob Wayss told Xinhua Wednesday.

"Inspection has began in the factories in Dhaka, Chittagong and elsewhere in the country," he added.

"We're recruiting 10-15 more experts within the next few days as part of our efforts to speed up the entire process of inspection."

He said the Accord, which has already hired 60 experts including engineers, is scheduled to complete inspection in at least 200 factories within the next three weeks from Wednesday.

By September this year, Wayss said, "We'll inspect 1,500 factories."

According to Wayss, the purpose of the inspection is to support Bangladesh factory owners improve safety measures.

He said experts will identify safety problems in the factories and ask their owners to improve them and set a deadline for them to end the required tasks.

In this connection, he said if needed the retailers would extend loan support to the owners to implement the safety measures in their factories.

Thanks to its cheap labor, Bangladesh is now the world's second largest garments exporter after China, producing global brands for customers around the world. But the industry has been widely criticized for low pay and limited rights given to workers and for the often dangerous working conditions in garment factories.

A court in Dhaka had earlier this month denied bail to the owner of a garment factory -- Tazreen -- and his wife for a late 2012 devastating fire that left 112 dead.

In Bangladesh, factory owners are rarely charged over such tragedies. Analysts say tragic incidents continue to occur in Bangladesh as most of the culprits go unpunished and safety measures, even by South Asian Standards, remain very low in most of the factories.

The Tazreen fire incident was dwarfed by the worst industrial tragedy at an apparel hub on the outskirts of Dhaka where an eight- storey building housing five factories collapsed on April 24, 2013, leaving at least 1,130 people dead.

The tragedies revived questions about the commitments of factory owners and their global buyers to provide safe working conditions in the annually 22 billion US dollars export sector, which comprises about 5,000 factories employing more than 4 million workers, 80 percent of whom are women.