Korean Textile Company Starts Operation

Shints ETP Garment Plc, a Korean textile company which has rented sheds in the government- owned Bole Lemi Industrial Park started operation a week ago.

Present at the inauguration ceremony, which was held at the factory site on October 12, 2015 were, Arkebe Oqubay (PhD), special advisor to the Prime Minister; Moonhawan Kim, Korean ambassador to Ethiopia; Taddess Haile, state minister for Industry, and other officials.

Shints joined the rapidly expanding textile sector with an investment of 49 million Br, excluding the cost of rent for the five sheds it occupies. Three of the sheds cover 5,000sqm, whereas the other two are 10,000sqm each. Each of the first two sheds have 24 lanes that will serve as finishing rooms, while another two have 20 lanes each, dedicated to computer-aided design (CAD) and  automatic fabric cutting. Whereas the last sheds have 20 lanes each and serve as warehouses.

Fully importing its textile inputs from the Middle East, the company’s textile outputs are mainly sportswear and other types of outdoor clothing. It has the capacity to produce around 20,000 pieces per month, destined exclusively for export to the United States, Italy and Spain. It is targeting export revenue of 1.5 million dollars a year, according to Joseph Kim, general manager. The company plans to install a system at the end of 2015, for higher quality and efficiency.

At this stage the company employs around 1,500 people, which it intends to increase to 4,800 in the long run.

The textile industry is expected to generate more income and achieve the goals set in the second growth and transformation plan (GTP II), said Taddess during the press briefing at the inauguration, adding that bilateral and multilateral trade agreements such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), would give the country a competitive edge to export duty free products and benefit the locally operating foreign companies.

There are around 130 textile factories in the country, with 37 of them owned by foreign investors. Turkish company, Ayka Addis is the largest of all the textile companies in the country producing around 70,000 pieces of garment a day. With the outputs of these companies, export revenue from textile and garment products in the fiscal year 2013/2014 was 111.3 million Br.

In the Bole Lemi Industrial Park there are three more sheds operated by textile and garment factories and two leather companies. The 156ha park has 15 sheds that are currently under construction. The work is 98pc complete but the sheds have all been rented already. According to Mengestu Regassa, head of the Bole Lemi Branch Office there is high demand for textile sheds in the industrial park, which could not be met by the existing number of sheds. Power and water supply are also challenging the operation, he said.


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