REMARKS BY HONOURABLE MINISTER FOR COMMERCE INDUSTRY AND TRADE DURING THE HANDOVER OF BUHLENI FACTORIES TO KINGSGATE CLOTHING AND EURO SWAZI INVESTMENTS (PTY) LTD ON THE 17th JANUARY 2019 AT BUHLENI

  • Chief
  • Principal Secretary
  • Honourable Members of Parliament
  • Indvuna Yenkhundla
  • Senior Government Officials
  • Representatives of Kingsgate Clothing and Euro Swazi
  • Investments
  • Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

It is an absolute delight to greet you this wonderful morning and more specially to have your presence in this part of the country.

I know that some of you have driven long distances (from Durban) to be part of this rather brief event and I would like to specifically acknowledge that sacrifice.

Today marks one of the preliminary milestones for us as a ministry to ensure that we accelerate the drive towards creating jobs and ensure that we support decentralised economic activities in the country.

As you might know, ladies and gentlemen, His Majesty’s Government is in a drive to touch all levers possible to revive our economy. We, as a ministry, are constantly taking stock to identify and support measures and interventions that are within our reach to contribute to meaningful economic recovery.

That is the essence of our meeting today to handover this factory to the two companies that have been allocated the factories. As you might be aware, these factories are about a decade old. It was marginally used after its construction but of late has been minimally used for storage and not for its original intention of boosting our productive capacity.

Our historical efforts reveal that the location of this factory did not favour wet industries due to its location hence it was not favoured by some of the investors who needed space. But now everyone can see that Buhleni is a bustling town, with major development taking shape everywhere, thus it goes without saying that this town will soon be a business hub for the surrounding areas.

We are glad today to handover these factories to the two investors being Euro Swazi Investments and Kingsgate Clothing. These companies have been identified and facilitated by the Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority for the production of corn snacks and textiles, respectively, in their two adjacent factories.

I am honoured to announce that Euro Swazi will invest a total of E8 Million while phase 1 of their project is already in the implementation stage and as per their initial project intentions, the company will be creating about 45 Jobs when the entire phases are complete.

Secondly, we will hand over the bigger factory to Kingsgate Clothing. The company originates from South Africa and is currently the main buyer of garments made in Eswatini under the Cut Make and Trim (CMT) arrangement (supporting about 10 companies in the country). The total investment outlay is E5m to create a total of 1 000 jobs at full capacity.

We believe that as a result of these investments, there will be a lot of infrastructural developments and other spin-offs that will accrue to the entire area. In short, these projects will be a trigger for other businesses to be seized by the locals around this place.

Once again, let me thank you all for taking your time to be part of this event.

Thank You all, Siyabonga kini nonkhe bekunene.

OffCanvas Menu