MENA moves exports to Fiji

The Director of Samoa’s premier fashion house, MENA Samoa Ltd, Agnes Loheni, has denied claims that a lack of reliable workers has forced her company to send its export orders to Fiji for manufacture.

Instead, she says the problem has to do with reliability of shipping services.

“We are really proud of the skill base we have built up - the labour issues we have faced in Samoa have not been any more challenging than those we face in New Zealand,” she said in a response to email questions. Supply, however, is an issue. For example, shipping in raw materials can be hindered by changing shipping schedules.

“Our customers expect us to provide them our latest fashion as soon as possible. Reliability of shipping is fundamental to that.” Pricing is also affected by the tala, she said. Any drop in value against the New Zealand, United States and Australian dollars does make raw materials considerably more expensive.

“This has seen us having to take losses on our bottom line in an effort to maintain reasonable prices to our Samoan customers. But we can’t keep doing that forever. “

Confirmation that MENA is moving its export manufacturing to Fiji follows complaints from others in the industry about a lack of skilled workers forcing them to outsource manufacturing. Clothes sewn in Samoa are “expensive and quality is not up to par,” said one designer, who spoke to the Sunday Samoan on condition of anonymity.

“I totally understand why MENA is gifting jobs to Fiji,” she said.

Here, “the work is never consistent, the prices are not standardised, the timelines are never met, especially with our local tailors. We need tailors in Samoa to step up!”

No one in the fashion industry may be willing to publicly criticise the quality of work in Samoa, but wider employer surveys in 2007 and 2010 found that problems with workers included “laziness”, “dishonesty” and a lack of skills and iniative.

For her part, Ms. Loheni quotes the example of fashion and other businesses worldwide who have manufacturing contracts outside their countries of origin.

“Demand for our Samoan fashion is now greater than our ability to supply from Samoa,” she said. MENA is already manufactured in New Zealand and has been for the past eight years.

The dress brand also has a retail store in Auckland. Ms. Loheni hasn’t forgotten their humble beginnings here in Samoa, back in 2002.

“We are very proud of our Samoan roots as a business – our people have embraced us and what our brand stands for,” she said.

“It is absolutely Samoan and without our people, our customers, we would not be here today - business is now Pacific wide.”

Ms. Loheni claims that when dealing with international wholesale customers, the demand for supply changes dramatically. So much that “it is very cutthroat out there”.

“Supply contracts have built in penalties for none or late delivery.”

The result is that the quantities are large but the margins small. It means that MENA needs to have certainty of supply at the quantities required.

MENA looked at both China and Fiji whom deliver far larger quantities more cheaply due to their scale of operations, she said. “At the end of the day we want our fashion to benefit the Pacific and so for us the decision to locate some production in Fiji keeps our vision and values true.” She claims the close proximity to Fiji is also a huge advantage.

Fiji will allow MENA “to keep their retail prices respectable”. It will also enable them to make the quantities the world is increasingly wanting of the Samoan product. And ultimately MENA’s success will be Samoa’s success, said Ms. Loheni.

That said “we are not eliminating production in Samoa altogether, merely changing the focus”. She also spoke about the unreliability allegations in supply while in Samoa, as well as the workers and in pricing being unpredictable- which she was positive about. “Our local Samoan employees work as hard as any workers we’ve employed.

“They have been reliable and committed to what we are trying to achieve.”

MENA has had machinists with very basic skills approach them. And they get trained to the point “where they are now some of Samoa’s best dress makers”.

With many years experience in the fashion industry the brand is known worldwide as Samoan. And Ms. Loheni knows what that means: “I truly understand that we are very proud of who we are and where we come from.

“For such a small nation, Samoa for years has punched well above its weight particularly in sports, art and music,” she said. But the way she sees it – regardless of where MENA is made, it is still Samoan.

“Our signature design and prints are visibly Samoan and strongly indicative of our Polynesian heritage.” It is not unusual for branded clothing labels to farm out their production, she said. She cites famous Italian label Versace as an example, with some of its production in Turkey.

“This has in no way affected their Italian brand and roots. And well-loved American label the Gap does some manufacturing in China.”

In recent years, other South Pacific nations have claimed MENA as well, said Ms. Loheni.

“This of course is humbling, but I think one of the reasons they are also proud to wear MENA is because we design clothes that allow them to fully express their heritage in a beautiful and visible way.”

So what are the challenges faced by MENA as a result of moving manufacturing to Fiji? Ms Loheni replied that “it’s still early days.

“Yes there are challenges in Fiji -it’s a new working environment for us and due to the larger scale there are different challenges in that too.

“We’ve had to re-think the way we plan and deliver our collections because we’ve been so used to doing it a certain way all these years.”

Communication with other business parties and an understanding of everyone’s expectations is key to a successful business relationship she said.

“It’s an exciting time for us and for the business - obviously we want to take our brand even further and when we do, Samoa always comes with us.”