Orient Mills builds new plant for $6 million

Wet processing plant expected to create 2,000 job opportunities.

KARACHI: Orient Textile Mills is setting up a new wet processing plant in Karachi’s Landhi Industrial Area with an initial investment of $6 million (Rs520 million), a company representative told The Express Tribune.

The plant will have dyeing and finishing facilities coupled with a fabric processing capacity of 80,000 metres a day. Moreover, the plant will also have a stitching unit with 450 stitching machines, which can produce up to 50,000 pieces a day.

“It’s going to create at least 2,000 new jobs,” said Orient Textile Mills director of sales and marketing Wahid Tumbi. “We’ve already hired 600 people. We’ve yet to hire the rest, but our first priority is to elevate current employees of the group to senior positions in the new unit.”

The plant is going to be operational in June 2012. Tumbi said around 70% output of the plant would be exported while the rest would be supplied to the local market for domestic consumption.

Orient Textile Mills – part of Ebrahim Group of Companies – currently operates a weaving plant with daily output of about 75,000 metres of fabric. The expansion is likely to result in significant profits for the company, as value-added products fetch higher prices in international markets.

Up to 80% of the country’s total textile output is exported every year. Textile export fetched earnings of $9,956.5 million in 2010-11, up 30% from $7,663.8 million in 2009-10, according to the latest Pakistan Economic Survey.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th,  2011.