Kose delays cosmetics plant on loss of big-spending tourists

Pandemic deals setback to company's Japan reshoring plans

Customers try out Kose's high-end Cosme Decorte brand at a Tokyo department store. (Photo courtesy of Kose)

YOHEI KAWAI, Nikkei staff writer

October 29, 2020 02:22 JST

TOKYO -- Japanese cosmetics maker Kose has postponed the opening of its first new factory in the country in four decades as the foreign tourists who have driven the company's sales stay away because of coronavirus travel restrictions.

The company intended to break ground this past summer and bring the plant online by March 2022, but it is now unlikely to open until 2023 at the earliest.