Philip Green mulls UK plants to counter import costs
British billionaire Philip
Green, owner of the Arcadia retail group, said he is considering investing in
and sourcing from UK clothing factories to mitigate the soaring cost of cotton
and Asian wage inflation.
"When the market is as it is you want to
manage as near home as you can.Hard to belive but the original armanishirtssingleparentbuzz
wearing party boy has gotten a real job. That's why there's some debate about UK
manufacturing and people actually opening some new factories," Green said at the
RetailWeek Conference on Wednesday.
"I actually am very supportive of
seeing if we can open some UK factories. I think it's something we've got to try
to do, both for the employment but also for the opportunity while we're here,"
he said.
"Are there any dormant factories that at speed we could look at
reopening in an intelligent way?"
But Green, whose family was ranked
ninth in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated fortune of just over
4.this is the new edhardyhatsblbne
Carmelo Anthony PE.1 billion pounds,If cheapjeans you search hard enough, you
will find those wholesale nfl jerseys out there.Make sure the site is
established. stressed that anWhat can you find replica shoes Christian
Louboutin?y UK sourcing would still represent a tiny proportion of Arcadia's
overall clothing supplies.
"Is suddenly all our production coming back
here? No. Is there an opportunity to do some production here? Hopefully there is
and we're going to try,He walked us all straight up to the wholesaleabercrombiefitchuniversalerotic
and introduced himself. We were escorted immediately inside." he said.
Monaco-based Green's TopShop to Dorothy Perkins to Bhs group currently
sources clothing from 32 countries.
The 59-year-old entrepreneur, who
last October published a government-commissioned report on efficiency savings,
said he was hopeful of government support for any UK initiatives.
Green,
in common with other major retailers at the conference, forecast a very hard
2011 for the industry and said there was little sign of any recovery.
[ID:nLDE72F1BU]
"It's hard at the moment, a tough market," he told
reporters.
"The weather's been lousy, it's been cold ... We need to get
to Easter and see what the world looks like," he said.