Ambassador Garment on Expansion Spree
As part of expansion of its investment portfolio, Ambassador Garment and Trade PLC is restructuring its well-established business, and unveiled a plan the previous week to invest close to 350 million birr that will go to the setting up of a new plant, which will lie at 25,000 sqm of land at Gelan, Oromia Regional State. This investment is said to boost Ambassador’s production capacity to 1,000 suits per day.
The company has already closed its plant located in the Gerji area of Addis Ababa. Meanwhile, it sold its warehouse, which rests on 1,500 square meters of land in the Jackross neighborhood of Addis Ababa, to Awash Bank SC.
The warehouse around Jakros was the very first plant the company had when it commenced operation back in 1997.
Following the closure of its plant at Gerji, the company furloughed its employees, with some of them taking away a 10-month salary.
“We are now focusing on the new investment in Gelan,” Seid Mohammed, CEO of the company, told The Reporter.
The Gelan plant is expected to be operational next year, and towards that end the company has issued an international tender for the procurement of machinery.
It is to be recalled that Ambassador signed an agreement with equipment suppliers such as Juki Singapore Private Ltd and Macpi Group (HK) Ltd to install new machinery.
The agreement, however, is not binding and the winning bidder remains to be determined by the closing date of the tender on August 2, 2017.
As far as the new investment is concerned, Ambassador was thinking in terms of entering into a joint venture with a business entity. However, its offer has so far not been able to attract potential partners.
“It was difficult to get interested companies,” Seid said.
In this regard, the new plant will create job opportunities to close to 800 employees.
At present, Ambassador has some 89 retail stores across the country.
Upon completion of the current phase, the company is poised to embark on an expansion of the Gelan project, enabling it to raise its capacity to 2,000 suits a day.
Seid launched his business three decades ago with a single sewing machine. He has now ventured into real estate as well as the hospitality industry.
Source: The Reporter
