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Esquel Group

Native name	溢達集團
Company type	Private
Industry	Textiles
Founder	Yang Yuanlong [zh]
Headquarters	Hong Kong
Key people	Marjorie Yang (Chair)
Number of employees	35,200
Website	www.esquel.com

Esquel Group (Chinese: 溢達集團) is a Hong Kong–based textile and apparel manufacturer. It is the world's largest woven shirt maker, producing about 100 million shirts annually. Esquel supplies textile to companies such as Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Li Ning, ANTA Sports, Fila, Giordano, Muji.

Its head office is in Harbour Centre [zh] (海港中心), Wan Chai.

History

The family owned business was founded in 1978 by family patriarch Yang Yuan-loong [zh]. The opening of China that year had according to one of Yang's daughters led to the decision to establish the company.

U.S. sanctions

In July 2020, the United States Department of Commerce placed a Hong Kong–based subsidiary of Esquel Group on the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List for alleged use of forced labor of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In July 2021, Esquel filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. government seeking removal from the Entity List. In August 2021, Esquel was removed, with conditions, from the Entity List by the inter-agency End-User Review Committee, which is composed of representatives from the U.S. Departments of Commerce, State, Defense, Energy, and Treasury. Several weeks later, Esquel resumed its lawsuit after failing to reach an agreement with the U.S. Commerce Department regarding the timetable for removal and the specifics of the conditions for removal. In November 2024, Esquel Group was banned from importing into the United States under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

Facilities

Most of the company's manufacturing facilities are in China.

Its operations in China like the rest of the textile industry in China have faced the constant pressure of rising labor costs and stricter environmental regulation. The company has strategy of upgrading or opening new facilities with better automation to counter the competitive pressure of rising wages. This strategy was noted by the South China Morning Post as different from some other competitors which sought to diversify operations by moving to other countries with lower labor costs.

References

1. "Esquel Group". Esquel Group. Archived from the original on 2017-07-24. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
2. ^ "100m shirts and counting: Textile maker Esquel embraces technology to cut costs and protect the environment". South China Morning Post. December 16, 2016. Archived from the original on July 11, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
3. ^ Vanderford, Richard (October 31, 2024). "Hong Kong's Esquel Group Added to U.S. Forced Labor Ban List". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 1, 2024.
4. Killing, Alison; Rajagopalan, Megha (January 13, 2022). "This Clothing Company Has Close Ties To Xinjiang, Where Forced Labor Is Rampant". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on February 19, 2023. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
5. "Contact Us". Esquel. Archived from the original on 2022-06-24. Retrieved 2022-06-24. ESQUEL ENTERPRISES LTD. 13/F Harbour Centre, 25 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong - Traditional Chinese address Archived 2022-06-24 at the Wayback Machine: "溢達企業有限公司 香港灣仔港灣道25號 海港中心13樓", Simplified Chinese address Archived 2022-06-24 at the Wayback Machine: "溢达企业有限公司 香港湾仔港湾道25号 海港中心13楼"
6. ^ "How the Esquel Group unexpectedly ended up all in the family". CNBC. May 16, 2016. Archived from the original on July 6, 2017. Retrieved September 9, 2017.
7. Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany (July 21, 2020). "Subsidiary of world's largest shirtmaker put on U.S. blacklist over Xinjiang ties". Axios. Archived from the original on July 22, 2020. Retrieved July 21, 2020.
8. "Commerce Department Adds Eleven Chinese Entities Implicated in Human Rights Abuses in Xinjiang to the Entity List". U.S. Department of Commerce. July 20, 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-07-21. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
9. "Esquel Group sues US over subsidiary's inclusion on 'entity list'". South China Morning Post. 2021-07-07. Archived from the original on 2023-02-20. Retrieved 2021-07-07.
10. Bray, Chad (August 4, 2021). "Nike's former supplier Esquel Group scores a rare win in a bid to remove Xinjiang unit from US forced-labour sanctions list". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on August 17, 2021. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
11. "15 CFR Appendix Supplement No. 5 to Part 744 - Procedures for End-User Review Committee Entity List and 'Military End User' (MEU) List Decisions". Legal Information Institute. Cornell Law School. Archived from the original on August 27, 2021. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
12. Bray, Chad (August 30, 2021). "Hong Kong shirtmaker Esquel Group resumes lawsuit in bid to remove Xinjiang unit from US forced-labour sanctions list". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on August 31, 2021. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
13. ^ "Why A Chinese Clothes Maker Rejects Cheap Labor And Goes Green". Forbes. November 10, 2015. Archived from the original on July 30, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2017.

External links

• Official website

• Textile companies of Hong Kong
• 1978 establishments in Hong Kong