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| Sunday, 22 January 2006 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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by Surekha Galagoda Local textile manufacturers have invested around Rs 100 million to purchase new machinery to supply the best quality school uniform material for year 2007. The Education Ministry has decided to purchase its entire stock of school uniform material of 9-10 million metres for year 2007 from local manufacturers as in the last two years to give a boost to the local textile industry. A high-level discussion was held between Education Minister Susil Premajayantha, Textile Industries Minister Jayatissa Ranaweera, Ministry Secretary Manel Kuruppu, Director, Textile Training Institute D. P. Gunawardena and local fabric manufacturers to see whether the total requirement can be handled by the industry. The local manufacturers have assured the authorities that they can supply the total requirements. Some manufacturers import the yarn and manufacture the material locally while some import the grey material and process it locally, said Ceylon National Chamber of Industries Chairman Nimal Perera. At present there are 10 manufacturers including Sigiriya Textile Mills, Padma Weaving, Texpro Weaving, Nids Fabric, Wanguard Industries, Prabatex, Backsons, Star Textiles and Maguras who supply the required quantity of material. "We are hoping to get more manufacturers engaged in the process. The Textile Training and Services Centre is willing to give the technical know-how to new manufacturers who wish to join the process for the year 2008", Perera said. The Ministry of Textiles will handle the allocation of quotas and it will be given to each company depending on the capability and capacity of each company. He said that prior to awarding quotas a technical committee will visit each company to assess the technical capability of each company as the uniform material has to be of the highest quality as the child has to wear the uniform or the shirt and pair of trousers for one whole year. We now also get orders to supply the material for the uniforms required by the Armed Forces which brings the total requirement to 20 million metres, he said. He said that when the duty on textiles was removed in 1997 there was an undertaking by the government that it would purchase the uniform material requirement from local manufacturers. At present there are 50 mills operating in the country providing
employment to around 5,000 people. |
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