Soft Touch AB – a Swedish importer of protective gloves from Asia for the Scandinavian market under the brand Soft Touch – has established their subsidiary in Malaysia in January this year under the name STIL Trading Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
Soft Touch’s managing director and owner, Michael Cederkvist, has also moved to Kuala Lumpur the same month to further improve and develop contacts with the producing countries in Asia.
“I consider it necessary to move closer to the production industry for a period, to ensure the development of our quality, logistics and deliveries,” says Michael Cederkvist, who plans to run the company from Malaysia and visit Sweden a couple of times per year until he returns to Sweden in 2006.
The strategic choice of Malaysia as their latest establishment is due to the country’s central location in the region.
Soft Touch sees that its presence in Asia will ease its next step of further expansion into personal safety items, such as garments, shoes, safety glasses, etc. With this move, search for new suppliers will also start.
Soft Touch’s big increase in its business which started in 2000 made it impossible for the company to stay in its old location in Gothenburg, Sweden. To enable efficient sourcing and quality control, a Hong Kong-based subsidiary, Soft Touch International Ltd, was opened in August 2001 and followed recently by two offices in China, one in Shenzen and the other in Shanghai.
Soft Touch was founded in 1913, initially with a business focus on the trading of skin materials within Europe. The company has expanded into gardening and work gloves since the mid 80’s and later introduced its own brand of gloves, Soft Touch, in 1992. Today Soft Touch is one of the leading trademarks on all kinds of gloves.
For more information about Soft Touch, please visit the company’s website http://www.softtouch.se/.
