Yanai said in BBC interview published this week that Uniqlo doesn’t source cotton from that region of China’s far west, where the US has restricted trade on concerns over human rights.
His remark came after Beijing said in September that it would investigate the parent company of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein for suspected boycotting of cotton from Xinjiang.
The Greater China region accounted for more than a fifth of JPY3.1 trillion ($27.7 billion) of the Fast Retailing’s revenue in the year ended August 2024, according to filings. Uniqlo was operating 2,509 stores worldwide as of the end of September, including 1,031 in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China’s mainland.
Itoh declined to comment on the possible impact of the chairman’s remark on the company’s operations.
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US and European companies have been under pressure to pull business from factories that make clothes and other products in Xinjiang, where workers’ groups have documented alleged forced labour camps and other poor conditions. China disputes the claims.
