High costs turn textile buyers back to Europe

Biella, Italy

INTERNATIONAL textiles buyers are increasingly switching away from China - and turning back to Western suppliers - as rising labour, raw material and energy costs make the world's dominant producer more expensive.

In Biella, a small town in the foothills of the Alps at the heart of northern Italy's wool industry, factory owners said that a narrowing price difference with China and demands for nimbler production nearer home are winning back higher-end customers.

In the office of his family business, Alessandro Barberis Canonico recounts how one high-profile European client called him recently to say that he was giving up on China becaus…