To encourage employee creativity in reducing energy consumption and pollution, company executives regularly evaluate employee project proposals, offer bonuses to winners and help them put their ideas into practice. In total, the company has invested more than $50 million in energy-efficient and eco-friendly projects over the past decade.

When asked for her interpretation of company excellence, Yang said, "The goal of Esquel is to realize the optimized load of its system-to produce the right fabric at the right machines at the right time and then deliver to the right customers in the right sequence."

In pursuing excellence, for example, Esquel spent about $13 million on cottonseed cultivation, sewage treatment, improvements to the dyeing and weaving processes, and adoption of the radio-frequency identification technology in 2005 to record and trace data on bales of cotton it purchases from farmers, Yang said.

Between 1995 and 2005, Esquel donated more than 15 million yuan ($2.2 million) to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where the company's production begins, to promote education, environment protection, and cooperation between farmers and the company's spinning plants. It provides instruction to educate farmers about planting organic cotton in Xinjiang. It also has an authentic orchard that grows organic fruits at its Urumqi plant. From 1996 to 2007, Esquel donated 8.44 million yuan ($1.12 million) to promote local education. It has built 16 primary schools and 1,011 small libraries and granted 3,368 scholarships to poor children, Yang said.

Vertically Integrated

Esquel is a business that is "green" and capable of growth, Yang said. Its vertically integrated operations ensure the highest quality in every step of the apparel manufacturing process, she added.

Esquel developed its own extra-long staple cotton in Xinjiang. It produces a high-count fabric that has a silken texture and is extremely fine and lightweight, making it the ideal fabric for garments of the highest quality. The company manufactures shirts at factories in Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, as well as in Malaysia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam, and has a network of branches servicing key markets worldwide. Esquel's customers include the world's best-known brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Brooks Brothers and Nike, and major retailers such as Marks & Spencer Group Plc and Nordstrom Inc.

Esquel is proud of its strong product development capabilities that consistently give the group an edge in the industry. For instance, its design and merchandising teams work closely with its research and development center to create unique features such as wrinkle-free and nanotechnology performance qualities.

Esquel also owns two retail brands, the premium cotton shirt brand PYE started in 2000, and the Shirt Stop brand of casual wear retail stores, which it created last November. The company currently produces 70 million garments annually and had sales of $660 million in 2007, Yang said.