Bhs team visits Sri Lanka
A three member team from Bhs UK visited Sri Lanka from May 22 to 25
to explore the possibility of expanding their sourcing from the country.
The members of the team were Divisional Buying Director Cassie Moore,
Senior Buyer Julian Miller and Senior Quality Advisor Nick Duke.
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The Bhs
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Janaka
Ratnayake |
Bhs, is a British department store chain with 186 branches located in
high street locations primarily selling clothing was first launched in
the UK in the early 1900's. It was bought by Sir Phillip Green the owner
of the Arcadia Group in the year 2000 for Sterling Pounds 200 million.
The Arcadia Group had recorded a sales value of over Sterling Pounds
3,000 million during the last fiscal year.
The EDB organized a meeting between the Bhs team, the Joint Apparel
Association Forum (JAAF) and the leading apparel associations at the
commencement of the program. This was the first official meeting of
Janaka Ratnayake the newly appointed Chairman of the EDB. Welcoming the
BHS team Ratnayake thanked them for including Sri Lanka in their South
Asian itinerary. He stressed that since this is a vital industry for the
economy of Sri Lanka accounting for nearly 44 percent of the export
revenue, the Government would extend its fullest support to Bhs to
increase their sourcing from Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka Apparel Exporters Association Chairman and Favourite Group
Managing Director Kumar Mirchandani, making a presentation on behalf of
the industry to the Bhs team said that Sri Lanka has over the past three
decades developed into a sophisticated industry from mere tailors to
total solution specialists. The industry reality of no sweatshop
conditions, no child labour, maintaining international health and safety
standards, governed hours of work, community outreach programs were
highlighted by Mirchandan.
Garments without Guilt - making the 'Made in Sri Lanka' label
synonymous with ethical and sustainable apparel manufacturing was also
explained.
It was mentioned that a Sri Lankan company was the first in the world
to receive the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
Platinum award - a benchmark for design, construction and operation of
high performance green buildings.
JAAF Secretary General Rohan Masakorale said that Sri Lanka has the
fastest shipping connections to U.K, which is 15 days transit at the
moment, where weekly services are offered with multiple carriers and the
service is direct without any transshipment. No other country in Asia
can match this service and it would be an added advantage to the buyers
to place orders in Sri Lanka as the speed of the supply chain
reliability is going to be critical and lead times and production cycles
would play a key role in future decision making process for buyers.
Briefing the gathering, Cassie Moore said that Bhs was part of the
Arcadia Group UK which owns and operates nearly 3000 Stores in the UK
and worldwide. Their brands are Bhs, Top Shop, Dorthy Perkins, Wallis,
Evans, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Top man and Burtons. She said Bhs buys
women's and men's clothing, children's wear, school wear lingerie,
nightwear, underwear, house wear and footwear. She further said that Bhs
has been buying school wear from Sri Lanka for the last 18 years.
The purpose of this visit was to review the opportunities of
developing other products through Sri Lanka. Moore made use of this
occasion to extend their thanks to their existing suppliers and to the
new vendors scheduled to meet in Sri Lanka.
She also thanked the EDB and the Sri Lanka High Commission in the UK
for having assisted them greatly in recognizing the opportunities for
manufacturing development in Sri Lanka.
The Bhs team visited around 10 factories during their three day tour
in Sri Lanka including small, medium and large scale units meeting their
basic criterion of being Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX)
certified.
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