13 January 2010, Montréal - Gildan Activewear is trying to fully
evaluate the impact of Tuesday afternoon's magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti,
on the operations and employees of its sub-contractors in the country.
Gildan has no vertically-integrated manufacturing facilities
in Haiti, but uses third party contractors to sew the majority of the fabric produced
at its Dominican Republic textile facility. Initial indications are that two
out of the three contractor facilities used by Gildan are intact, while the
third and smallest contractor facility has suffered substantial damage. The company’s
textile and sewing facilities in the Dominican Republic have not been affected
by the earthquake.
Gildan’s Dominican Republic / Haiti manufacturing hub is
currently dedicated to supplying a portion of the Company’s basic T-shirt requirements
for the U.S. screen print market. The company says it is in a strong inventory
position and is immediately implementing contingency plans to minimize likely
short-term disruption of contractor production in Haiti. This will be done by
increasing production at its integrated sewing facilities in the Dominican
Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua, in order to continue to be well positioned to
service demand in the peak summer selling season for T-shirts. Gildan says that
the supply of products for the company’s retail customers is not affected by
the situation in Haiti.
Gildan will provide a further analysis and update as soon as
it has more complete information on the status of its Haitian sewing
contractors and the country logistics and infrastructure.
“Most importantly, Gildan’s management wishes to express its
concern for the well-being of the people of Haiti and is committed to playing a
leadership role in efforts to provide humanitarian aid to the country,” Gildan
said.
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