Levi Strauss & Co - the world's largest brand-name clothing manufacturer - has decided to 'reconnect' with China after pulling out in 1993 over concerns about the mainland's human rights record.
Levi Strauss said it had continued to monitor the situation in China and had now found conditions had improved enough to ensure its strict sourcing guidelines could be met.
Speaking in Hong Kong, Levi Strauss president and chief operating officer Peter Jacobi said: 'We just think the overall environment is correct. We feel that we can run the business in a way that is consistent with what we care about and what we believe in.' Human Rights Watch Hong Kong director Robin Munro said: 'We would be concerned if they are going in on the back of the claim the overall human rights situation for workers is better than it was when they pulled out. That would be an unjustified conclusion to draw.' Levi Strauss, a privately held company based in San Francisco has a reputation for rigidly enforcing its code of business conduct and has won several humanitarian awards in the United States.
The company had not severed all contact with the mainland, but from 1993 it reduced the number of units sourced in China from about 2.5 million a year to about 800,000.
