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Business Reporter
ROYQUI Investments, a company with diverse business interests is at an advanced stage of building a blanket factory in Beitbridge at a cost of US$23 million, an official has said.
Mr Roy Muleya, a director of the company said in an interview yesterday the company was awaiting the arrival of the first batch of equipment from China.
“Basically, our target (to assemble the plant) is May and our equipment is already on the ship,” he said. Royqui Investments is 30 percent owned by Zimbabweans — Mr Muleya and his brother Danisa, with 15 percent shareholding each. A consortium of Chinese business investors owns the remaining 70 percent.
Upon completion, the company has potential of creating close to 500 jobs, said Mr Muleya.
However, the commencement of the project would depend on the Zimbabwe Investment Authority leasing out some factory shells at the Beitbridge Industrial Park.
A sources also said the Chinese investors have set conditions on Government, including assurances against economic “failure and risks” for investing more money in the project.
The company will target both local and exports market, particularly countries in the southern region.
Between January and August last year, Zimbabwe imported blankets and related products worth about US$18 million, according to statistics from Zimstats. Zimbabwe’s blanket sector, a sub sector of the textile industry has inadequate capacity to produce enough for the local market, with a few remaining operational companies, such as National Blankets on the verge of collapse.
Most retailers are importing blankets mainly from Indonesia, China, Tanzania and South Africa.
The textile industry, which at its prime was one of the major employers in the country, is on the brink of collapse as fears mount over the closure of more textile firms.
The textile companies are operating below 10 percent of their capacity due to inadequate working capital needed replace obsolete equipment and stiff competition from cheap fabric imports which have seen the country literally relying on imports.
At its prime, the industry employed about 24 000 people but less than 4 000 are now under its payroll, according to the Zimbabwe Textiles Union secretary-general Mr Silas Kuvheya.
In the past five years, about 8 000 workers were rendered jobless from the 12 000 the sector employed. And the downstream industries such as clothing and retail, which fed on textile firms, employed even more.
Similarly, 94 percent of textile companies were operational but are now down to 34 percent. Mr Kuvheya said Government needed to mobilise funds specifically for the textile industry.
Online Reporter