Viana - A clothing factory with the capacity to produce between 300 and 900 thousand items of clothing per month was inaugurated this Friday in the municipality of Viana, Luanda, thus creating 120 jobs in the first phase.

Set in an area of 1,500 square metres on the Viana Park site, the factory is dedicated to producing trousers, shirts, shorts, dresses and uniforms for children and adults, in a private initiative by Angolan company Befran, in partnership with a Chinese consortium.

Budgeted at 2.5 million dollars, the factory will operate with only 7 per cent local raw material (fabric), to be supplied by Textang II company, while most of the fabric will be imported, because the domestic market still doesn't meet demand, according to businesswoman and project mentor Beatriz Frank.

Because of this shortfall, she said that the company spends one and a half million dollars importing raw materials, which makes the price of the final product more expensive.

According to the businesswoman, the country still has a major challenge, as it "doesn't have any factories for zips, buttons and threads, as well as a shortage of skilled labour".

Despite these difficulties, Beatriz Frank said that the implementation of the factory, the idea for which emerged in 2015, is expected to create 400 jobs in the second phase, with the prospect of reaching 15,000 employees by 2026.

In turn, the secretary of State for Industry, Carlos Rodrigues, who cut the inaugural ribbon, emphasised that the factory would contribute to the development of the textile industry in Angola and diversify the national economy.

He also said that the initiative was a milestone in the industrial development of the textile sector in Angola, symbolising a significant step towards strengthening and diversifying sources of income, as well as promoting social inclusion.

As for the availability of local raw materials, the secretary of State recognised that this was still a challenge for the country, which led the government to take measures and policies to encourage national production to feed the industry.

He reiterated that the textile and clothing industry in Angola face challenges that require the willingness and co-operation of the private sector, with the production of fabrics to meet demand.

He assured that the conditions are in place to produce raw materials locally, such as cotton, which must be transformed and thus have a value chain that contributes effectively to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Carlos Rodrigues  also said that there are also several companies in the same segment with similar projects to boost the textile industry.

Alongside this factory, Luanda Province also has two uniform and gown factories in Viana and a uniform factory in the municipality of Cazenga.

Textile Industry

To feed the garment factories, the country currently has three main textile factories: Textang II (Luanda), Comandante Bula, formerly Satec (Dondo, Cuanza-Norte) and Textaf, formerly Africa Textil, in Benguela.

With 250 workers, Textang II has the capacity to produce 10 million metres of fabric per year, but its production is currently below 10% of this capacity.

As for the Dondo textile industry, it has the potential to produce 300,000 garments a month, including shirts and jumpers. The first production line has the capacity to manufacture 200,000 T-shirts and 150,000 shirts.

Rebuilt on an area of 88,000 square metres, the factory includes spinning, knitting, dyeing, finishing, garment manufacturing and a jeans fabric manufacturing area.

The second line has the capacity to produce 500,000 metres of jeans fabric in the same period. The revitalisation of the project was made possible by Japanese funding, budgeted at more than 340 million, out of a total of 1.15 billion US dollars, with the aim of reducing the country's clothing imports.

The rehabilitation of the enterprise is part of the process of recovering and reactivating state-owned assets, in line with the relaunch of the textile industry and the cotton sector in Angola.

Textaf, on the other hand, is essentially dedicated to transforming cotton into yarns and fabrics for multiple uses, from bath towels to tablecloths, sheets, blankets, uniforms, pillowcases, corporate uniforms and blankets, and aims to become Angola's leading textile manufacturer.

To this end, the textile factory located in Benguela province plans to reach its maximum production capacity of 500,000 units per month over the next few years.

Initially, it plans to push ahead with its strategic plan to start producing "100 per cent with national cotton".

Angola plans self-sufficiency in cotton production

Within five years, Angola plans to become self-sufficient in cotton production, with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry making around 30,000 hectares of land available for this purpose, with funding from the 2024 State Budget, as well as existing sovereign guarantees.

According to the government, part of this facility will be used to promote cotton production, with this year being the year for preparing the fields and January 2025 for planting to begin.

At the moment, the country has a few groups producing in small quantities, still in the testing phase to see the nature and adaptation of the seeds and soils, focussing on those regions with the greatest production capacity, with the recovery of areas where cotton was produced in the past.

As an example, Textang II plans to produce cotton on a large scale from January 2025, in an area of four to five thousand hectares, with a view to achieving self-sufficiency in this raw material in the country and satisfying the needs of the Angolan market within three or four years.

Reaching this target is a crucial factor in ensuring the full operation of the textile industry in Angola, according to the manager of this company, which has been trialling the production of cotton seeds for three years in Baixa de Cassanje, Malanje Province.

HDC/QCB/DAN/jmc