Polopiqué and StampDyeing – Tinturaria, Estamparia e Finamentos, located in Guimarães, Santo Tirso, and Vila Nova de Famalicão, are announcing the suspension of some of their production units in Portugal.

The Polopiqué group alone, which exports to more than 47 countries around the world, with important markets in Angola, Brazil, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, is closing two factories that are already insolvent and laying off 280 workers, with two more units undergoing restructuring, which may well increase the number of redundancies. Chinese online platforms such as Shein and Temu are being blamed for the decline of the Portuguese textile industry.

According to MaisGuimarães (+G), Têxteis J.F. Almeida S.A, Polopiqué Comércio e Indústria de Confeções, S.A, Polopiqué – Acabamentos Têxteis, S.A, and Stampdyeing, Serviços, Lda have already filed applications for Special Revitalization Processes (PER) with the courts throughout August. The four companies are part of Portuguese textile giants with branches throughout the Ave Valley (Guimarães, Famalicão, and Santo Tirso) that directly employ around two thousand people. In the case of J.F. Almeida, only the credit institutions are affected by a process that aims to reschedule debt in the face of cash flow difficulties, but at Polopiqué there are plans to make almost 300 redundancies.

Also according to +G, Polopiqué Comércio e Indústria de Confeções, with 54.5 million euros in debt, is complaining of difficulties in meeting its commitments. We also remember the turnover of 81.1 million euros in 2024, 19.5% more than in the same period last year, and the net profit of 1.3 million euros, 35.9% more than in 2023.

According to ECO, the group, which has around 800 employees who are expected to be cut in half, has started a restructuring plan that includes revitalization plans and the insolvency of business units.

According to the chairman of the board, Luís Guimarães, the textile group “will maintain the strategic and most profitable activities in its value chain, focusing on areas where it has greater differentiation, control, and operational return. In this way, it will maintain an activity of excellence in the areas of design, logistics and sales, textile finishing, and yarn production,” he told ECO, guaranteeing in a statement that “the restructuring will be conducted with a total sense of social responsibility”.

“The group will move forward with a set of measures aimed at simplifying processes, optimizing the value chain, and strengthening the economic and environmental sustainability of its operations,” it continues, stressing that the “concentration of production capacity in the units with the highest operational performance and flexibility, closing the garment manufacturing and fabric weaving units,” the statement points out.

For its part, StampDyeing, part of the Mabera – Coelima Group, which currently exports around 25% of its production to the US and around 70% to the European market, has not paid salaries for two months to around 100 workers, including vacation pay. Dâmaso Lobo, the administrator of the group that owns the Vimaranense dyeing and printing plant, said that he will meet with the affected employees this Monday, September 1. “With the gas cut off since then, they continue to work 8 hours a day without producing anything,” confirms AbrilAbril.

Also according to the information space, linked to Abril values, which follows national and international news, Dâmaso Lobo had already committed himself, in a meeting with the Textile Union of Minho and Trás-os-Montes (affiliated to the CGTP-IN), to paying off the debts he owes to the affected workers, but so far he has failed to pay the salaries at StampDyeing.

Nevertheless, Coelima’s turnover grew by 15% in 2024, reaching results of 8.5 million euros, with even better expectations for 2025, as Dâmaso Lobo himself confirmed to PortugalTêxtil, which acquired the historic textile company in 2021.

“At Coelima there was talk of profits, but at the expense of StampDyeing. Here we have no wages and no future,” lamented a worker to the newspaper MaisGuimarães, in one of the many protests that took place in August, the month in which a chemical supplier filed for insolvency against the company on the first day, due to lack of payments.