Uniqlo doesn’t use Xinjiang cotton, boss says | EUROtoday

The boss of the corporate behind world vogue chain Uniqlo has informed the BBC that the Japanese agency doesn’t use cotton from the Xinjiang area of China in its merchandise.

It is the primary time Fast Retailing’s chief govt Tadashi Yanai has instantly addressed the contentious subject.

China is a vital marketplace for Uniqlo not only for prospects but additionally as a serious manufacturing hub.

Xinjiang cotton was as soon as often known as among the greatest cloth on the planet.

But it has fallen out of favour after revelations that it’s produced utilizing compelled labour by individuals from the Muslim Uyghur minority.

In 2022, powerful US laws on the import of products from Xinjiang got here into impact.

Many world manufacturers eliminated merchandise utilizing Xinjiang cotton from their cabinets, which led to fierce backlash in China. Brands resembling H&M, Nike, Burberry, Esprit and Adidas had been boycotted.

Sweden’s H&M noticed its clothes pulled from main e-commerce shops in China.

At the time, Mr Yanai – who’s Japan’s richest man – refused to substantiate or deny whether or not Xinjiang cotton was utilized in Uniqlo clothes, saying he needed “to be neutral between the US and China”.

His determination to not take a facet helped Uniqlo to stay standard in China’s big retail market.

But chatting with the BBC in Tokyo concerning the agency’s measures to be extra clear about the place the supplies in its garments come from and the way they’re made, he mentioned: “We’re not using [cotton from Xinjiang].”

“By mentioning which cotton we’re using…” he continued, earlier than pausing and ending his reply with “Actually, it gets too political if I say anymore so let’s stop here”.

Isaac Stone Fish, the chief govt and founding father of Strategy Risks, a enterprise intelligence agency with a China focus highlights the pressures on companies from each China and the US.

“Not a single large company can remain politically neutral anymore,” he says.

“Both Beijing and Washington want companies to choose sides, and Tokyo will continue to lean closer to the United States in this matter.”

Even although Uniqlo has been increasing aggressively in Europe and the US, in Mr Yanai’s personal phrases, “we are not a known brand globally” and Asia continues to be its largest market.

The firm has extra shops in China than in its residence nation Japan, and Mr Yanai says he doesn’t plan to vary that technique regardless of challenges on the planet’s second largest economic system.

“There are 1.4 billion people in China and we only have 900 to 1,000 stores,” he says. “I think we can increase that to 3,000.”

Meanwhile, China is Uniqlo’s single largest manufacturing hub. The firm additionally makes garments in international locations together with Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia and India.

In 2009, when 80% of its merchandise had been made in ChinaMr Yanai informed the BBC that China was getting too costly and the agency was shifting manufacturing away “to lower-wage Cambodia to keep prices low”.

He now says it was difficult to repeat China’s success because the world’s manufacturing unit in different international locations as transferring years of expertise proved troublesome.

Retailers like Uniqlo are additionally going through intense competitors from ultra-fast vogue as manufacturers like China’s Shein and Temu achieve recognition with price-conscious prospects.

But Mr Yanai says “I don’t assume there’s a future for quick vogue”.

“They’re producing garments with none cautious consideration which you solely put on for one season. That is a waste of the planet’s sources.”

He adds that Uniqlo’s strategy is to focus on essential items that can be worn for years.

In the 40 years that he has been in charge of the firm, Mr Yanai has grown the business he inherited from his father from a company with annual sales of around 100 million yen ($656,700; £522,400) to a global chain with 3 trillion yen of revenues this year.

The 75-year-old says he aims to overtake Inditex, which owns the global chain Zara, as the world’s biggest fashion retailer before he retires.

But to achieve that, Uniqlo needs to expand not just in China but also in the West, where shoppers are increasingly conscious of human rights issues such as forced labour.

Mr Yanai’s ambitions might also face extra hurdles as Donald Trump returns to the White House on a pledge to impose a lot increased tariffs on Chinese-made items.