Clothing group Coolcat says it has lost €500,000 in sales because of comments by trade minister Lillianne Ploumen, who said it had refused to sign a charter on Bangladesh factory working conditions.

Owner Roland Kahn told business magazine Quote no one in the government cared about the minister’s statement, even though she had demonstrably ‘got it wrong’.

In an article in the AD, the minister suggested Kahn had refused to sign a covenant about working conditions although the covenant in question referred to fire safety.

Kahn told Quote in an email that hundreds of Dutch companies have still failed to sign the covenant and that Ploumen has said nothing about them.