Debenhams posted total sales worth GPB2.4 billion (EUR3.1 billion) in financial year 2014 and own brands brought 27% of the total. As the local market manufactures 5% of overall own brand apparel, sales of “made in Romania” Debenhams clothes can be put at around EUR42 million.
In the ranking of the most important manufacturers for Debenhams, Romania battles with known “tailors” from Asia, such as China, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. In the battle with Asian countries, Romania has lost ground amid salary gaps as in Romania a tailor earns EUR200-300.
Romania’s plus is the skilled workforce and closeness to Western markets where major brands are headquartered. Moreover, the salary of a Romanian tailor is still 5-6 times lower than in the West.
In this context, the world’s biggest brands are coming to Romania to work with the plants that have hundreds or even thousand employees each.
Clothes have become one of Romania’s most important export products and the plants are now among the biggest employers in the country. Apparel manufacturing includes 136,500 employees, with tailoring as one of the 15 most “popular” crafts in Romania by the number of employees in each industry.
At a time when major plants are struggling to survive and many of Romania’s smaller cities are left without industry, textile plants manufacturing for international names are one of the few employment opportunities left, so that textile producers have become major employers in many counties of Romania.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)