The Swedish multinational apparel-retailer Hennes & Mauritiz (H&M) has released its global supplier list for the first time to the public. The supplier countries of the fast fashion clothier H&M include India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Portugal, Romania, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.
China is the largest supplying country of H&M with 261 suppliers, followed by Turkey with 181 and Bangladesh with 166 suppliers. On the other hand, Thailand, Poland and Latvia have only one supplier each.
According to H&M, the list includes all its supplier factories with which the company has a long-term business relation. These supplier factories account for around 95 percent of order volume for all H&M brands.
Elin Hallerby of H&M press office told fibre2fashion, “Over the years we have developed strong strategic bonds with our suppliers, which permits disclosure of their names, their factories and their locations. We have invested major resources into developing our suppliers and building strong, long-term relations, based on mutual trust and transparency.”
“That is why we now release the list without major concerns about the ongoing competition on the best available production capacity in our industry. By publishing the list, we want to contribute to a more transparent and ultimately more sustainable fashion industry,’ the officer explains.
About 31 percent, i.e. 311 of the total 993 supplying factories in the H&M list are from the four South Asian countries—India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Asked specifically about India and Bangladesh, the spokesperson said, “We look for long-term partnerships with our suppliers in both India and Bangladesh, which are important buying markets for us. We have purchased goods from Bangladesh for over 25 years and we have an office there since 1986. In India we have been present since 1993.”
