Kandurata Umbrella to venture into frame manufacturing

by Surekha Galagoda

Kandurata Umbrella Ind. (Pvt) Ltd, a leader in the umbrella industry will venture into frame manufacturing by setting up a frame manufacturing plant in Pallekele.

The plant will be established in April as a joint venture with China. The new venture will provide jobs for more than 1000 people, said Director Kandurata Umbrella Ind. (Pvt) Ltd M.T.M. Nawushad.

He said that two acres of land have already been purchased together with the buildings. "We will start modernising the buildings from next month prior to importing the machinery and starting production," he said.

The raw materials will be imported from China and we are planning to start manufacturing the frames in Sri Lanka by April, said Nawushad.

He said the objective of setting up the frame manufacturing plant in Sri Lanka is to supply high quality high tech umbrellas to the Sri Lankan market as well as globally. At present we enjoy a 60% market share and it is still expanding while we also export to other countries. At present we import the parts from Taiwan and China and assemble it in Sri Lanka.

Once we start the frame manufacturing plant our imports will be minimised thereby saving a lot of foreign exchange.

At present Kandurata products including umbrellas and nets are sold all over the island.

The company is also planning to expand into other areas such as baby products as well as expand the range of soaps. At present the company only manufactures bar soap under the Kandurata brand name. The company was founded in 1978 as a sole proprietorship by the late M.H.M. Thajudeen with 10 employees and four machines as a cottage industry.

The Chairman is M.H.M. Siddeek while the Managing Director is M.H.M. Rauf Deen.

The company employs over 1,200 people directly and over 1,500 indirectly and has over 1,000 machines. The company has been awarded the ISO 9001:2000 International Quality system certificate.

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