RITO is a Ukrainian manufacturer of knitwear for women. The company was founded 25 years ago and now employs 90 workers and produces 25,000 pieces of garments per year within three lines – RITO woman knitwear, RITO home, RITO kids. RITO started its export history in Lithuania several years ago.
Interest in Canada came after several successful fashion shows in Canada initiated by RITO’s clients among the Ukrainian diaspora. After the shows, the company had several small test deliveries that helped better understand the peculiarities of the Canadian market.
RITO is currently completing the process of negotiations to start large deliveries to Canada in the nearest future. RITO had found a partner in Canada during Canada-Ukraine Business Forum in June 2016 that was made possible by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, Export Promotion Office and the Canada-Ukraine Trade and Investment support project.
The video success story of RITO
- “Our products for the Canadian market – they are cool and of a high quality, they are very good price-wise and, obviously, they are interested in Ukrainian products, while we are interested in an astoundingly large and cool Canadian market.”
- “The idea to try our hand in Canada arose because Canada is certainly one of the countries where a Ukrainian community is the largest and, naturally, it is always easier to take a fling where there are people with a positive and kind attitude.”
- “We expect the implementation of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, as it should make the products cheaper, reduce the distance to the end user and increase both shipments and batch volumes to broaden the field of action for Ukrainian business in Canada.”
- “It is not difficult for a woman to be an exporter. Generally, women push small and medium business as women, by their nature, first of all, emotional, and, secondly, motivated, persistent and very hard-working. Any person by 80% consists of emotions and any business situation is not always resolved rationally in the beginning. First of all, it is resolved in the personal context. That is, you always try to find common grounds with the partner, and it is easier for a woman to do.”
- “Canadians value the environmental aspects of goods, so in our production process, we are currently implementing energy saving techniques. We will be installing solar batteries and we have almost refused from gas. We recycle our wastes to the maximum extent.”
- “The sense of beauty is not only how we look, but also what we feel, especially for a woman. Therefore, business, on one hand, motivates to create beautiful clothes, and, on the other hand, to give positive and very good emotions.”