The US $ 210 million Palmal Group has been expanding at a steady rate, going from just 6 to 30 factories in a decade. The company has plans to setup 2 more factories by the end of this year through acquisition of ‘dead’ or inactive factories, as the rising real estate cost and gas connection problems make it difficult to build a new setup.
The company, which has a policy of continuously adding new machines with no machine used for more than five years, aims to have all machines with underbed trimmer by 2013. “We are looking at the latest machines from Juki and Yamato to help us reduce extra operations. If a machine can do something for us, we buy it,” says Aseem Sood, Vice President, Palmal Group. With a total workforce of 19,000 and a setup of 6,200 machines, Palmal produces 8.5 million garments per month. They also have 145 circular knitting machines with a capacity of producing 50 tonnes of fabric per day.
The textile division of the company has a turnover of US $ 60-70 million and Palmal is looking at increasing in-house fabric production to satisfy 65 per cent of their garment manufacturing requirements. “Textiles have been our major thrust for investment over the last 4 years and it will continue to be so for the next 3 years,” adds Aseem.
Aseem is proud of the fact that today they are the largest knitwear exporter in Bangladesh, producing all types of knitted garments, and fabrics with solid colours and prints. “By far we have no comparison. I think our closest knit competitor would be at least US $ 50 or 70 million away from us,” says Aseem. The Group has registered a consistent growth rate of 15-18 per cent YoY since 2001.
