(AFP)

TOKYO - Japan's casual clothing brand Uniqlo and Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus said Tuesday they would create a textiles company in Bangladesh to help poor women gain financial independence.

Fast Retailing, which owns Uniqlo, plans to invest some 100,000 dollars to set up Grameen Uniqlo Ltd in October.

The new company will source materials and make garments in Bangladesh -- including women's underwear, school uniforms and blankets.

It plans to hire up to 2,000 local people within three years, drawn mainly from the eight million borrowers of Yunus' "microcredit" Grameen Bank, and train them to become financially independent by selling clothes.

Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his Grameen Bank, which gives tiny loans to help the very poor start businesses. Of its borrowers, 97 percent are female.

"Grameen ladies will become their own business owners by selling the clothing products in visits to neighbours' houses," said Tadashi Yanai, chairman and president of Fast Retailing.

"The best way to combat poverty is to help each person make money and stand on their own."

Yunus, a ground-breaking banker from Bangladesh, is backed by corporations such as food giant Danone, global water group Veolia, sportswear company Adidas and software company SAP.

Fast Retailing will be the first Asian corporation to start a social business with the Grameen Bank group, Yunus said.

"Uniqlo is a global company, a big company, and a company that is now creating a social business in Bangladesh," he said at a Tokyo press conference, adding that the world needs a new economic "architecture" to fight poverty.

"One of the attempts to redesign the architecture is to bring another kind of business into the world, besides the business that we all know today, the business to make money for ourselves," he said.

"Now the other business we talk about is a business to change the world. That's the kind of business we signed with Uniqlo today."

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Comments (1)

David  - Introduction

September 05, 2011  

Hi,

Would like more informations about your company

Pls call me on . 01720246786

Thanks
David

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