Decisions Regarding Production Location within the Swedish Textile and Apparel Industry today and in 2025

The textile and apparel industry is known for being at the forefront in manufacturing sourcing in new countries and collaboration with external manufacturers is very common. Studying how textile and apparel companies take decisions regarding production location is interesting since they represent one of the most global industries in the world, and some elements could be applicable in other industries where offshore production is a newer, less exploited phenomenon. This report includes a study that was performed in order to investigate where Swedish textile and apparel companies produce today, how it will change within then years and what factors that lie behind the decisions. The applied research strategy was a survey in the form of a questionnaire that included 119 Swedish textile and apparel companies. Interviews were also performed with some of the participants that represented large actors within the industry. The research showed that Swedish textile and apparel companies produce globally, but that the major part of production is performed in Europe and Asia. The largest share of the industry’s production is located in China followed by Sweden, the Baltic countries and other European regions. In Asia, Bangladesh and India have the second and third largest production share after China. The results indicate a stagnation of production in Asia as well as an increase of production in Europe and Africa until 2025. The study showed that location decisions are affected by internal factors, specific for the company and their products, and external factors specific for the location. Economic factors are by many companies considered as the most important factors but the availability of the right competence is also important together with existing relationships and political stability in the area. The results indicated that large companies are more likely to move their production and that there is a positive relationship between previous moves and change of production within the next ten years