Africa-Press – Eswatini. Over 1 600 Emaswati have been employed following Clockwork Giant Clothing’s E400 millioninvestment.
This was revealed yesterday when Minister of Commerce Industry and Trade, Manqoba Khumalo toured the factory at Matsapha. The minister held discussions with management of the factory led by Managing Director Rob Sparks. The discussions were around the current development, future expansion and new factory building, including international opportunities.
The minister said government believed that Clockwork Giant Clothing Factory had been a beacon of hope in the past two years as the planet was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In 2019 Clockwork Giant Clothing announced that there would be an expansion and E400 million was committed to that expansion and today we are here to look at that investment, which is now fully underway,” the minister said. He explained that when Giant Clothing Clockwork first arrived in 2010 to establish their business, their initial staff complement was 720 and over 10 years this number has grown to 1 600 with only 16 expatriates.
According to the minister, Clockwork Giant Clothing has also put in place a 10-year plan to employ a further 850 personnel and to note is that within six months of that plan, already 600 employees have been engaged.
Effects
The minister said Clockwork Giant Clothing has survived the COVID-19 pandemic effects. “When the pandemic began and we were all thrust into the unknown, Clockwork Giant Clothing took up the mantle to produce emergency apparel required during this trying time. They were granted essential service status and hit the ground running working diligently to ensure that the required products were made available on time and in full,” he said.
He added that there was a need to understand that as a whole the type of industry they were in took a massive hit world-wide but Clockwork Giant Clothing was fortunate to soldier on inspite of these difficult circumstances. He said the unfortunate loss of lives was inevitable as impacted by many in the different industries. According to the minister, Clockwork Giant Clothing has had a total of 178 COVID-19 cases and lost three employees.
He said they have since made it part of their mandate to encourage their personnel to be vaccinated as 91 per cent of the staff is now vaccinated as there is a clinic on-site. “From a business perspective, the pandemic brought about much opportunities by the opening up of new markets, namely in Denmark, Italy and Zimbabwe.
The demand in the UK has grown significantly for Clockwork Giant Clothing products and is doing extremely well. This gives us so much encouragement seeing Emaswati being gainfully employed,” the minister said.
He added that all in all the countries supplied by Clockwork Giant Clothing were 11 in total, namely Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Italy, and the United Kingdom with new projects in Australia, Denmark and Germany.
The managing director, on the other hand, appreciated government for granting them the opportunity to showcase their products. He said they had been able to create a different working environment as they aimed to be different. Sparks said their greatest asset were the people they had employed.
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