Pittards Plc, a UK leather and leather products company, plans to open a factory in Addis Abeba that will produce industrial gloves and is expected to start production by August 2011, according to John Moriarty, managing director of Ethiopian Tannery SC, the local subsidiary of Pittards.
The company received their investment licence for the factory, which is to be named Pittards Product Manufacturing SC, two weeks ago from the Ethiopian Investment Agency (EIA) and subsequently bought a building in the Saris area for the purpose of housing the factory, according to Dagnachew Demelash, finance director at Ethiopian Tannery. However, he declined to specify the company from which the building was bought.
The new factory is expected to cost 12 million Br and at the start of production is expected to produce an estimated 40,000 pairs of industrial gloves per month, with between 75pc and 80pc of the gloves to be exported to the US (30,000 pairs) and the others mainly to Europe, especially the UK, and a small amount is to be sold in Ethiopia.
Pittards, which was founded in 1826, produces leather gloves as well as luxury leather goods and sports equipment, and plans to purchase the raw materials for their factory from Ethiopia Tannery SC, which is located in Modjjo Town, 73km southeast of Addis Abeba.
"We expect to produce leather crusts as well as manufacture and sell exclusively finished leather products in three to five years' time," Moriarty said.
CITATION http://www.chinaleather.org/eng/show.php?itemid=6042
