china has emerged as the largest exporter of fast fashion, accounting for 30% of world apparel exports. however, some chinese workers make as little as 12–18 cents per hour working in poor conditions. each year americans purchase approximately 1 billion garments made in china. today's biggest factories and mass scale of apparel production emerged from two developments in history. the first involved the opening up of china and vietnam in the 1980s to private and foreign capital and investments in the creation of export-oriented manufacturing of garments, footwear, and plastics, part of a national effort to boost living standards, embrace modernity, and capitalism. second, the retail revolution within the u.s. (example wal-mart, target, nike) and western europe, where companies no longer manufactured but rather contracted out their production and transformed instead into key players in design, marketing, and logistics, introducing many new different product lines manufactured in foreign-owned factories in china. it is the convergence of these two phenomena that has led to the largest factories in history from apparels to electronics. in contemporary global supply chains it is retailers and branders who have had the most power in establishing arrangements and terms of production, not factory owners. fierce global competition in the garment industry translates into poor working conditions for many laborers in developing nations. developing countries aim to become a part of the world's apparel market despite poor working conditions and low pay. countries such as honduras and bangladesh export large amounts of clothing into the united states every year.