Speaking during the official opening on Saturday, Industrialization Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed said the new factory has a potential to create another 14,000 jobs by December 2015/FILE
Speaking during the official opening on Saturday, Industrialization Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed said the new factory has a potential to create another 14,000 jobs by December 2015.
“Such investments in the Textiles and Apparels Sectors are a clear demonstration of the growing investor confidence,” Adan said. “the government is deliberately focusing on labour intensive sectors that are key drivers in job creation and industrialization,” he added.
The new Mombasa Apparels EPZ Factory will manufacture garments for the international market.
This year, Kenya managed to spring up as the leading and largest exporter under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) program in Sub-Saharan Africa, with exports to the tune of over Sh26.9billion and 10,000 new direct jobs created.
To underscore the importance of this sector, global players in Textiles and Apparels will be in the country next week, to participate at the Origin Africa, a Pan-African event organized by the African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (ACTIF) in collaboration with the Ministry of Industrialization.
“From a global perspective, many industrialised nations have had the textile and apparel sectors as their pioneer sectors to industrialization,” Mohamed said.
He said that the government will remain committed to making provisions to support the sector by focusing on strategic interventions that will improve the operating environment.
These includes subsidizing the cost of power in order to ensure that investors are able to create more employment opportunities for the people.
“These interventions will also ensure that as a country we remain competitive and well positioned to grab a share of the global apparel market that stands in excess of Sh44.8 trillion,” he noted.
