After establishing itself in the USA and Europe, Barnet began a “pivot” to Asia to continue its vision of becoming a truly global company. With the tremendous growth of the textile industry in China, Barnet saw China as a market for the products it manufactured and a source of raw materials it could use in Europe and the US.
The first step into China was the establishment of Barnet Pacific (BPAC) in 1995. Hong Kong was, at that time, the gateway to China and was the major port through which goods from the “west” were imported and products from China were exported. BPAC initially focused on the Shenzhen/Guangzhou China region, but after a short time BPAC added the entire East Asia market including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and many other countries.
With a booming Chinese economy taking off in the 21st century, Barnet Trading was founded in 2004 in Shanghai to expand Barnet’s business in China’s mainland. Barnet Trading (BT) has grown a significant network of suppliers and customers in China providing sources of raw materials for Barnet’s operations and markets for Barnet’s products. Barnet Trading also serves China/Asia operations for many of Barnet’s key global customers.
By 2011, it was clear to Barnet that it could better serve customers in Asia by establishing a manufacturing site in China. The Barnet China team identified a site in Qingpu for Barnet’s first manufacturing location in Asia – Barnet Fibers Shanghai (BFS). The initial objective of the manufacturing site was to produce precision cut fibers for wet-laid nonwovens producers in the region. Many of the customers in the region were global companies which were served by Barnet in the US and Europe. These global companies wanted to be supplied by a local entity in Asia as opposed to importing fiber from external Barnet facilities. Additionally, China was growing a significant technical paper market of its own, and BFS benefitted from this as well. Today, BFS has added other processes which have expanded its markets allowing Barnet China to serve the same broad range of customers that are served in the Americas and Europe.
Today, these 3 entities, BPAC, BT, and BFS form a tremendous team representing Barnet in a quickly growing region. Barnet Asia was founded with a focus on Barnet’s traditional commodity Fiber, Yarn, and Polymer businesses. More recently, like the rest of the Barnet world, Barnet Asia has established a tremendous base for Barnet’s growing Technical Fibers business.
