It is interesting to see that despite a lot of subsidies, industry-friendly policies of India’s Federal as well as various State Governments, Indian apparel manufacturers are investing in Togo, a West African nation on the Gulf of Guinea. Recently Tirupur’s ITCRmg announced to invest to investment US $ 35 million and set up 750 flat knitting machines in ‘PIA’ Park (The Industrial Platform of Adetikopé), Togo. This first-ever garment factory by an Indian company in Togo is expected to generate US $ 40 million worth of export value on an annual basis and is supposed to create 2,000 direct jobs. Inaugurated in June ’21, this park is now open to investors around the world to set up their manufacturing units here. ARISE Integrated Industrial Platforms, Dubai (UAE) that designs, finances, conceives and operates industrial ecosystems across Africa is geared up to attract companies across the globe to invest in this park. Vikas Budhiraja, VP, Marketing (Textile Parks & Apparels) of the company, is confident that in the next 2-3 years, the park will fetch investment of about US $ 1 billion and will create 40,000 direct jobs. He also shared that there is much more that makes this park and Togo an attractive option for successful garment operation.
Recently, Togo is being talked about a lot and is showing good signs of becoming an upcoming manufacturing destination, thanks to its upcoming apparel manufacturing at ‘PIA’ Park which has competitive cost of manufacturing (due to competitive wages, competitive renewable power, cotton availability in park and port proximity). It also has favourable business climate for investors due to fiscal and non-fiscal incentives from the Government; duty-free status (under AGOA) for US and for EU/UK (under EBA); stable currency (pegged against Euro); funds made available at competitive rates for capital & working capital requirements; and a sustainability led platform build on the fundamentals of ESG (Environmental Social & Governance) addressing pain points of leading brands and retailers.
What makes this textile park different from the ones established in other African countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar etc., is that it is built as a ‘Textile Eco-system’, which distinguishes it from the other textile zones across Africa.
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“PIA Textile Park offers an all-encompassing infrastructure to the investors across the textile value chain as it has the availability of plug ‘n’ play sheds for textile and apparel manufacturing, solar/grid power station to fulfil energy requirements, ETP plants based on ZLD/ZDHC technology, inland container depot (ICD), truck handling terminal, housing, medical, textile & garment training facilities for workforce, raw cotton warehousing, inhouse single-window clearance for company formation, registration & licenses,” Vikas said and further added that covering a total area of 400 hectares, it shall house up to 10-15 vertical integrated factories and 20-30 garment factories.
“Cotton made in Africa (CMIA) certified cotton, power, workforce, garment training, logistics, port proximity, sustainability-led facilities, incentives, duty advantages to EU/US are all available for the factories operating in the park,” he stated.
Vikas strongly feels that with the entry of the ITCRmg in this park, some more Indian companies will be attracted to invest there. He expects that in the next 1 or 2 years, about 8 to 10 Indian textile or apparel investors from Asia and Africa will set up manufacturing units in the ‘PIA’ park.
It is not that the PIA park at Togo only offers incentives and schemes like India, but it also offers long-term duty advantages into EU/USA, apart from being a competitive RM, workforce/power and sustainability-led manufacturing platform. In fact it has a combination of all things required to start and grow a garment export business. “Apart from AGOA/EBA benefits, the park entails 50 per cent of worker’s wages paid by Government for the first 18 months; zero income tax/corporate tax for the first 5 years; zero import duties on raw material, machines, supplies; zero dividends; vat tax-free repatriation of profits, capital and financial assets; flexibility to recruit expats; and zero tax on expat’s salaries. Here electricity is available at 8 cents/KWH, US $ 0.88 per kilo (1000) litres of industrial water,” said Vikas.
This park is hailed as a highly sustainable one due to various reasons like CMIA/BCI Certified cotton to be used by all factories in the zone, renewable source of power (Solar power), ZLD/ZDHC based ETP facilities provided by the park and traceability ensured through software at the source.
Since apparel manufacturing is still at its early phase in Togo, there is a need for soft skills and technical skills among the operators. And this critical issue is addressed through the early start of textile and garment training of workers. There are a total of 500 sewing machines and qualified trainers for skilling of workers about 12 months in advance.
Anticipating the need for experienced textile specialists, Arise has teamed up with Texcom Textile Solutions to establish ‘Arise Textile Management services’ (ATMS) which provides the technical services to investors as per their requirements like strategy, EPC, O&M, Marketing.
As brands and retailers are involved deeply with their vendors regarding the planning for manufacturing processes, PIA is also looking to tie-up with global brands as well to fill the capacities in the upcoming factories. “PIA Park addresses the pain points like supply disruptions, compliances, competitive, sustainable & traceable products, lead-times of the leading retailers and fashion brands. We are at a very advanced stage to conclude tie up with some brands for the long-term apparel off-take from the factories in the park,” Vikas concluded.
