| | MAY 20239IN FOCUSCHINESE BASED SHEIN TO FUND NEARLY $150 MILLION IN LOCAL PRODUCTION IN BRAZILShein, a Chinese online retailer of fast fashion, announced that it will spend 750 million reais ($148.9 million) in Brazil over the next few years to build relationships with thousands of textile producers there.The business, which also unveiled a Brazilian marketplace for buyers and sellers, said it plans to collaborate with 2,000 local manufacturers, which should result in the creation of 100,000 new employment over the following three years.By the end of 2026, local producers and vendors should account for almost 85 percent of all transactions made in Brazil, it continued.According to Shein's Latin America Chair Marcelo Claure, the company's objective is to `basically ship raw material to Brazil and localise our manufacturing in the country'."All the savings in transport and logistics will be offset by what I believe will just be a little higher manufacturing cost, so the end result should be exactly the same or lower", he explained.Shein now ships each order separately from Brazil. Fernando Haddad, the minister of finance for Brazil, had earlier stated that Shein intended to use local production to localize a portion of its Brazilian sales.The investment, according to the business, will be used to give local manufacturers access to technology and training so they can modernize their processes to work in line with Shein's on-demand model."We have seen great success in Brazil since our launch in 2020, and with growing consumer demand, we saw the opportunity to further localize our supply chain",Claure said in an earlier statement. ACCORDING TO SHEIN'S LATIN AMERICA CHAIR MARCELO CLAURE, THE COMPANY'S OBJECTIVE IS TO `BASICALLY SHIP RAW MATERIAL TO BRAZIL AND LOCALISE OUR MANUFACTURING IN THE COUNTRY
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