ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Yoshihisa Suzuki, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has acquired additional shares of Vietnam’s state-run textile company group, Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (hereinafter “VINATEX”) through its subsidiary, ITOCHU Textile Prominent (ASIA) Ltd. (headquartered in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Hiroyuki Akahori, CEO; hereinafter “IPA”).
As a result, ITOCHU will be its largest private stockholder, following the Vietnamese government.
ITOCHU will work on increasing the corporate value of VINATEX and further expanding synergy as a strategic partner.

VINATEX was established in 1995 and is Vietnam’s largest textile company group, with over 80 subsidiaries and affiliates and 100,000 group staff members from the upstream to downstream of the textile industry.
ITOCHU and VINATEX have built a relationship of mutual trust over many years since the start of apparel OEM-related trading in the 1990s.
ITOCHU has focused on strengthening the production base for textile products in the Asian region and the construction of a system for production in the optimal location.
In 2015, ITOCHU acquired shares of VINATEX through its subsidiary IPA and worked on the construction of an integrated production system from the upstream to downstream in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, capital investment in the textile industry has become active due to the free trade agreement with the EU, which is set to come into force.
Vietnam is attracting attention as a major location for the production of textile products, ranked directly below China.
In addition, several leading European apparel retailers have entered the Vietnam market and the demand for clothing has increased with the improvement of income levels.
In this situation, a variety of synergy effects are expected by further strengthening the collaborative relationship with VINATEX as a strategic partner, including the expansion of trade utilizing the advantage of duties and the creation of new business directed at the ASEAN market.
As a result, ITOCHU has decided to make this additional investment.
In future, ITOCHU will further utilize the excellent garment bases under the umbrella of VINATEX and the global network of the ITOCHU Group and strengthen the distribution of garment products to Europe, America, Japan, China and other Asian regions to further increase and expand the corporate value and business of both companies.