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| Alok Industries spins Victoria's Secret in Burkina Faso |
| Arijit Barman / Mumbai Sep 05, 2010, 00:08 IST |
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Spinning unit to kickstart industrialisation in the country.
What is Victoria’s Secret? Why is this cult American lingerie brand such a must have for every second woman around the globe? Why do its supermodel brand ambassadors or “angels” — from Heidi Klum to Adriana Lima, Miranda Kerr and Helena Christensen — become global faces that launch a thousand dreams? This $5 billion question that's on every fashionista's mind may soon have an answer.
For one, it's the organic, free-trade cotton grown exclusively for them in far away Burkina Faso in West Africa. But this is where it gets even more interesting. Did you know our homegrown Alok Industries plays a key part in all of it?
Alok Industries’ involvement with Victoria’s Secret and Burkina Faso is actually three years old. Since 2007, Alok Industries along with its Sri Lankan partner, MAS Intimates, sources close to 300 tonnes of Burkinabe cotton from there. This cotton gets shipped to India and Alok Industries spins 200 tonnes of yarn from that. This yarn is then made into fabric and sent to MAS Intimates factories for the final garment before it hits high street fashion shelves from New York and Paris to London and Tokyo.
But now, in order to make the economics even more viable and to kickstart industrialisation in the former French colony, Alok Industries is planning to set up a manufacturing base - a spinning unit of 68,000 spindles.
Alok Industries' management refused to comment on the project at this juncture, but industry sources said the project will be a partnership between the company and the sovereign government of Burkina Faso. Alok Industries will be the 51 per cent majority partner. "It's difficult for me to talk about the project now as the negotiations are still alive," said Alok Industries Managing Director Dilip Jiwrajka.
Industry sources said that a majority of the project will be financed via sovereign debt with some residual equity investments by both stakeholders.
The foundation stone laying ceremony is expected to take place mid September in Bobo Dioulasso, the second biggest city of the country and a key hub of its textile and agriculture trade.
For the American lingerie giant, promoting Burkina Faso and its women cotton cultivators has a philanthropic side which all its partners, including Alok Industries, acknowledge.
But there is a parallel business case as well. Currently, Alok Industries sources 3,500 tonnes of yarn from outside to fulfill its own clothing requirement. A facility in Burkina Faso will now give it an option to make 600 tonnes of yarn every month. That’s 7,200 tonnes every year which the company can use for its own requirement or sell to other textile companies.
Alok Industries exports 35 per cent of its products to over 70 countries in the US, Europe, South America and Africa. Other than Victoria’s Secret, its global customers include GAP, JC Penney, Mothercare and Walmart. Alok Industries’ export income in 2010 has seen 60 per cent annual growth at Rs 1560 crore.
It may not be a huge project with mega investments. But this $40-million project will be one of the pioneering industrial venture in a country which is one of the poorest in the world but a leader in women's empowerment, African peacekeeping and conflict mediation — reason enough for multilateral agencies like the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank to show interest in funding the unit.
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