Kenya To House New $25m Textile Factory

November 10, 2014 Busayo Business, Retail & Manufacturing, Strategies & Solutions

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VENTURES AFRICA – Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy, is set to welcome more investment into a budding textile industry after opening its doors to a $25 million garment factory. The factory will be situated in Mtwapa, a town located in Kenya’s Kilifi County.
The Mombasa Apparels EPZ factory is part of Kenya’s move to position itself, and the East African region, as a key investment hub and an industrial haven.
“From a global perspective, many industrialised nations have had the textile and apparel sectors as their pioneer sectors to industrialization,” Industrialisation and Enterprise Development Cabinet Secretary, Adan Mohamed, said.
“Investments in the textiles and apparels sectors are a c
lear demonstration of the growing investor confidence (and) these interventions will also ensure that as a country we remain competitive and well positioned to grab a share of the global apparel market that stands in excess of $500 billion dollars,” he explained.
The new garment factory is also expected to address unemployment issues in Kenya.
The factory will provide 3,000 direct jobs. However it has the potential to create another 14,000 jobs by December 2015.
Mohamed said that “the government is deliberately focusing on labour intensive sectors that are key drivers in job creation and industrialisation.” According to him, the government will remain committed to making provisions to support the sector by focusing on strategic interventions that will improve the operating environment. This includes subsidising the cost of power to ensure that investors are able to channel more funds to employment opportunities.
“This year, Kenya managed to spring up as the leading and largest exporter under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) program in Sub-Saharan Africa, with exports to the tune of over $300 million and 10,000 new direct jobs created in the apparel sector,” Mohamed said.
Kenya hopes to attract more foreign investments into its textile manufacturing business. One of the ways it intends to do this is through the Origin Africa event which will take place later this month. The event, organised by the African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (ACTIF) in collaboration with the Ministry of Industrialization, is expected to play a big role in shaping the future of the country’s textile sector.