UNIQLO to reduce sourcing from China

26 Feb '10

2 min read

Japan's Fast Retailing Corporation has announced that one-third of clothing production of UNIQLO brand will be produced outside of China in the future, in order to reduce production costs and dependence on China.

The 2009 fiscal year report released by Fast Retailing discloses that 70 factories in China and other Asian countries produce clothing for UNIQLO, of which 80 percent of the products come from China.

After UNIQLO established production management offices in Shanghai and Shenzhen in 1999, the number of factories producing clothing for UNIQLO gradually increased in China.

While UNIQLO transfers more and more production bases to areas outside China, it has already changed China's position from manufacturing base into a core sales market.

As of August 2009, UNIQLO achieved sales of 37.7 billion yen from overseas markets outside Japan, an increase of 28.8 percent year on year, its operating income realized 1.6 billion yen, an increase of 350.0 percent year on year, and its growth rate in overseas markets, was much higher than UNIQLO's performance in Japan.

In 2009 fiscal year, UNIQLO had 92 stores in overseas markets, including 33 stores in China, among them 20 stores were newly opened stores, the total number of stores and newly opened stores in China's market ranked first among UNIQLO's overseas markets, South Korea ranked the second place.

Fibre2fashion News Desk

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