With manufacturing costs rising in China, Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly eyed as a global low-end manufacturing destination for the garment and fashion industries, according to HowWeMadeItInAfrica.

H&M plans to open its first outlet in South Africa in 2015. Several European fashion brands including Topshop, Zara and Mango, have expanded to countries including South Africa and Nigeria in recent years.

Sweden-based fashion retailer H&M is testing sub-Saharan African countries for garment manufacturing. It plans to open its first outlet in South Africa in 2015 and has placed orders for garment manufacturing with Ethiopian and Kenyan suppliers.

Retailers such as Tesco and Walmart already manufacture some products in Ethiopia.

Elin Hallerby, a spokeswoman for H&M, told HowWeMadeItInAfrica that the company is in the early stages of sourcing from Ethiopia.

H&M doesn’t own any factories, working instead with hundreds of independent suppliers, mainly from European and Asian countries including Italy, Turkey, Bangladesh and China.

“We are a growing global company and we need to constantly look at how we can ensure that we have the capacity to supply products to all our stores where we have expanded rapidly,” she said. “…We see great potential in Ethiopia. It is a country with a huge development and growth and we see that we can contribute to jobs and reduce the unemployment in the country.”

That does not mean H&M will stop buying from traditional sources, Hallerby said.

So what does H&M look for in a new supplier?

“We place orders at suppliers that can live up to our high requirements when it comes to quality, prices and lead times, but another crucial aspect is our high sustainability requirements,” Hallerby said. “We always do a risk assessment before we enter into a new purchasing market. In Ethiopia we made extensive such analysis … we looked at human rights and environmental conditions in the country. Dialogue with the International Labour Organisation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and local organisations were part of the analysis. We lean against authorities such as the U.N. and follow European Union trade directives.”