JOIN USChinese clothing and yarn production giant Luthai Textile Company plans to make India a hub for its OTC (over the counter) business, as it explores more markets for high-end luxury yarn around the world.
The company manufactures spin yarn, yarn-dyed fabric and piece-dyed fabric, apart from its own range of high-quality shirts, at its facility in Zibo, Shandong province.
Its dyed cotton fabrics are exported to 30 countries in North America, Europe and the Far East, and sold to leading fashion labels. The company, which has traditionally been involved in B2B (business-to-business) operations, will for the first time explore a B2C (business-to-consumer) domain.
“In India, OTC is big business. We have joined hands with fabric trading company Blue Blends and set up a subsidiary entity Luthai India, from where we will reach out to passionate patrons and sell our luxury yarn-dyed supima cotton fabric.
Around eight distributors have been appointed in India, besides one each in Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Dhaka (Bangladesh), through whom we will retail our products via 4,000 dealers,” Luthai Textile Director (Foreign Trade Department) Leo W told Deccan Herald.
“The company is designing fabrics based on requirements and trends in the Indian market, and the products are due to hit the market in two weeks, priced between Rs 600 and Rs 12,000 per metre. Apart from retailing through stores, we will be bullish on shop-in-shops,” Luthai India managing partner Sushil Kothari said.
The yarn will be produced at Luthai’s Zibo facility, with a monthly capacity of manufacturing 17 million metres of yarn-dyed fabric, besides seven million metres of piece-dyed fabric and 1.7 million shirts. The company is also eyeing a manufacturing facility in India in the future.
“In the first year of 2015-16, we are targeting revenues of Rs 150 crore, expecting it to increase 20-25 per cent, going forward,” Kothari said, adding that as business grows, India would emerge as Luthai’s OTC export hub.
Luthai, which received government funding of $2 million in 1989, followed by an additional $3 million from Thai Textile Industry (TTI) in 1994, has grown into a $1.78-billion asset enterprise, employing 30,000 people. “Today, we hold 18 per cent of the world’s market share in high-end garmets,” Leo claimed.