Prominent Apparel Ltd., a business subsidiary of ITOCHU Corporation, has established the model Jacquard knitting mill, I.P. JAQ Knitting Limited in Bangladesh as a joint venture with Ito Corporation Ltd.

Based in Hong Kong, Prominent Apparel has mills in China and other Asian countries, and has been expanding its handling of fabric and products directed to Japan, Europe, North America, the Middle East, and various Asian countries. Its dress shirt fabrics and products in particular have grown into a business driving higher profits. In the process, it has come to support much of the package business developed by textile companies. In its quest for a further expansion of third-country transactions involving mainly countries in North America and Europe, it is taking approaches to production and sales of knitted products as its next core items.

In response to the influence of factors such as higher costs in China, there has been a rapid increase in export of knitted goods from Bangladesh to Europe in recent years. With attention to this trend, Prominent Apparel decided to establish this mill jointly with Ito Corporation, which runs a computerized Jacquard knitting mill in Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, production of knitted goods centers around plain (unpatterned) articles using hand-operated flat knit looms. By introducing facilities especially for computerized Jacquard knitting machines ahead of competitors, the new company will produce and sell Jacquard, Intarsia, and Pointal sweaters that cannot be matched by those of other firms and are endowed with a high value-added. It is going to partner with a few first-rate associated sweater mill firms and produce the Jacquard portions for them at the new mill. Other portions are going to be produced on hand-operated flat knit looms and then taken to the first-rate associated sweater mills for linking and finishing. The sitting of the Jacquard production, which is the key component, at the new mill will enable centralized control of supply chain management (SCM) for the entire product. For the time being, the plans envision centralized SCM control of all stages, from sourcing of materials to production and sales (mainly to large Western apparel firms), and annual sales of 5 million dollars in the fifth year. Through the scheme based on the newly established mill, Prominent Apparel intends to expand its knit business with third countries, and eventually with Japan and other countries around the world.

Outline of the mill

Outline of ITO CORPORATION LTD.

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