Polopiqué and StampDyeing – Tinturaria, Estamparia e Finamentos, located in Guimarães, Santo Tirso, and VilaNova de Famalicão, are announcing the suspension of some of their production units in Portugal.
The Polopiqué group alone, which exports to more than 47 countries around the world, with important markets in Angola, Brazil, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, is closing two factories that are already insolvent and laying off 280 workers, with two more units undergoing restructuring, which may well increase the number of redundancies. Chinese online platforms such as Shein and Temu are being blamed for the decline of the Portuguese textile industry.
AbrilAbril
According to MaisGuimarães (+G), Têxteis J.F. Almeida S.A, Polopiqué Comércio e Indústria de Confeções, S.A, Polopiqué – Acabamentos Têxteis, S.A, and Stampdyeing, Serviços, Lda have already filed applications for Special Revitalization Processes (PER) with the courts throughout August. The four companies are part of Portuguese textile giants with branches throughout the Ave Valley (Guimarães, Famalicão, and Santo Tirso) that directly employ around two thousand people. In the case of J.F. Almeida, only the credit institutions are affected by a process that aims to reschedule debt in the face of cash flow difficulties, but at Polopiqué there are plans to make almost 300 redundancies.
Also according to +G, Polopiqué Comércio e Indústria de Confeções, with 54.5 million euros in debt, is complaining of difficulties in meeting its commitments. We also remember the turnover of 81.1 million euros in 2024, 19.5% more than in the same period last year, and the net profit of 1.3 million euros, 35.9% more than in 2023.
According to ECO, the group, which has around 800 employees who are expected to be cut in half, has started a restructuring plan that includes revitalization plans and the insolvency of business units.
According to the chairman of the board, Luís Guimarães, the textile group “will maintain the strategic and most profitable activities in its value chain, focusing on areas where it has greater differentiation, control, and operational return. In this way, it will maintain an activity of excellence in the areas of design, logistics and sales, textile finishing, and yarn production,” he told ECO, guaranteeing in a statement that “the restructuring will be conducted with a total sense of social responsibility”.
“The group will move forward with a set of measures aimed at simplifying processes, optimizing the value chain, and strengthening the economic and environmental sustainability of its operations,” it continues, stressing that the “concentration of production capacity in the units with the highest operational performance and flexibility, closing the garment manufacturing and fabric weaving units,” the statement points out.
For its part, StampDyeing, part of the Mabera – Coelima Group, which currently exports around 25% of its production to the US and around 70% to the European market, has not paid salaries for two months to around 100 workers, including vacation pay. Dâmaso Lobo, the administrator of the group that owns the Vimaranense dyeing and printing plant, said that he will meet with the affected employees this Monday, September 1. “With the gas cut off since then, they continue to work 8 hours a day without producing anything,” confirms AbrilAbril.
Also according to the information space, linked to Abril values, which follows national and international news, Dâmaso Lobo had already committed himself, in a meeting with the Textile Union of Minho and Trás-os-Montes (affiliated to the CGTP-IN), to paying off the debts he owes to the affected workers, but so far he has failed to pay the salaries at StampDyeing.
Nevertheless, Coelima’s turnover grew by 15% in 2024, reaching results of 8.5 million euros, with even better expectations for 2025, as Dâmaso Lobo himself confirmed to PortugalTêxtil, which acquired the historic textile company in 2021.
“At Coelima there was talk of profits, but at the expense of StampDyeing. Here we have no wages and no future,” lamented a worker to the newspaper MaisGuimarães, in one of the many protests that took place in August, the month in which a chemical supplier filed for insolvency against the company on the first day, due to lack of payments.
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Lawyers for Chinese online platform Shein return to a Paris court on Friday for a hearing on the French government’s request to suspend the firm’s website for three months, after childlike sex dolls and banned weapons were discovered on its marketplace.
Customers queue to enter the first physical space of Chinese online fast-fashion retailer Shein on the day of its opening inside the Le BHV Marais department store, the Bazar de l’Hotel de Ville, in Paris, France, November 5, 2025 – REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo
Shein disabled its marketplace- where third-party sellers list their products- in France on November 5, after authorities found the illegal items for sale, but its main site selling Shein-branded clothing remains accessible. The French state wants the website suspended for a minimum of three months in the country, which it argues is needed for Shein to prove that its contents comply with the law.
It has invoked Article 6.3 of France’s digital economy law, which gives a judge powers to prescribe measures with the aim of preventing or halting harm caused by online content. France has also summoned major internet service providers Bouygues Telecom, Free, Orange, and SFR to the hearing, requesting they block Shein’s website. The court will have to decide whether a suspension is warranted, and whether it is in line with European Union law.
In a statement last week, the Paris prosecutor’s office said a three-month suspension could be deemed “disproportionate” under the case law of the European Court of Human Rights if Shein could prove it has stopped all sales of illegal goods. However, the prosecutor said it “fully backed” the government’s demand that Shein provide evidence of measures taken to end those sales.
France’s move comes amid broader scrutiny of Chinese giants such as Shein and Temu under the EU’s Digital Services Act, reflecting concerns about consumer safety, illegal product sales and unfair competition. Meanwhile in the US, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Monday he is investigating Shein to determine whether the fast fashion retailer violated state law related to unethical labour practices and the sale of unsafe consumer products.
China’s HongShan Capital Group (HSG) has sent a 2.5 billion euro ($2.91 billion) offer to private equity Permira to buy Italian luxury sneaker maker Golden Goose, with the aim of signing the deal by Christmas, daily la Repubblica reported on Friday.
Golden Goose is known for its luxury sneakers – goldengoose.com
Details still need to be defined but the offer gives the luxury group an enterprise value of 10 times the core profit expected by the end of the year, debt included, the newspaper said. Golden Goose’s revenues totalled 655 million euros in 2024, with an adjusted core profit of 227 million euros.
HSG has asked veteran fashion industry executive Marco Bizzarri to become Golden Goose’s future chairman, la Repubblica said, adding that the Chinese private equity aims to expand Golden Goose’s directly-managed stores, particularly in Asia, and plans to list the group in the medium-term.
Last year the Venice-based company, which sells sneakers for more than 500 euros a pair, shelved plans for an initial public offering on the Milan Bourse, citing market volatility caused by political uncertainty in Europe.
IKEA plans to source more products from factories in the United States, the Swedish furniture group’s top supply chain executive told Reuters, as President Donald Trump‘s tariffs drive up the cost of importing bookcases, mattresses and sofas.
IKEA logo is seen in this illustration taken, February 11, 2025 – REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
This marks a big shift for IKEA after the share of the company’s US-made products declined over the past decade. Inter IKEA, the brand franchiser, used to have a factory in Danville, Virginia, but shut it in 2019 and moved production back to Europe.
IKEA’s push to source products closer to where it sells them aims to support the retailer’s expansion in the US, its second-biggest market, and the wider region, where it has stores in Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia, with plans to open in Costa Rica and Panama.
“We are designing our supply chain network to be much more resilient, robust, and responsive,” Susanne Waidzunas, Global Supply Manager at Inter IKEA said in an interview with Reuters, adding that the company’s stores in North and South America are very dependent on furniture being shipped in, with long lead times.
“The closer we can build, the faster we can react from a supply perspective, both when it goes up in demand but also when it goes down,” said Waidzunas. The plan to produce closer to US consumers predates this year’s tariff hikes and is part of a global initiative.
But the timing is now beneficial: IKEA prides itself on low prices but was forced to increase them on some products in the US to offset the tariff impact. The retailer’s sales have declined for two years running as it lowered prices to attract inflation-weary shoppers.
SBA Home, a Lithuanian supplier to IKEA, is ramping up its first US factory in Mocksville, North Carolina, a $70 million investment supported in part by Inter IKEA. The factory will make products for IKEA like top-selling KALLAX shelves.
Jurgita Radzevice, CEO of SBA Home, said manufacturing capacity at the largely automated factory, which is expected to produce 2 million pieces of furniture a year, is steadily increasing.
IKEA depends more on imports in the US than elsewhere. Just 15% of IKEA products sold in US stores are made in-country, down from 19% in 2014. In Europe, 70% of the products IKEA sells are made in the region, while the equivalent figure for Asia is 80%. Its top sourcing countries are China, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, and Poland.
Producing in the US is more expensive, Waidzunas said, but shipping products across the world is also more costly and more unpredictable now than before the COVID-19 pandemic. IKEA plans to buy more from existing US suppliers, which include Ohio-based Sauder Woodworking, and look for new suppliers particularly of bulky items, aiming, for example, to source most of its mattresses in the US.
Politics8 years ago