Govindaraja Textiles setting up plant in the U.S.

The capacity of the unit will be 35 tonnes of yarn a day

Shri Govindaraja Textiles, part of the Jayavilas Group, is investing $45 million and setting up an open-end spinning unit in Eden, North Carolina.

Ramkumar Varadarajan, Managing Director, spoke at a roundtable discussion held here on Monday with Vinai Thummalapally, Executive Director of Select USA. Mr. Varadarajan later told The Hindu that the unit would have 16 machines and its production capacity would be 35 tonnes of yarn a day. The plant is expected to start production by the end of December this year.

North and Central America had a lot of knitting and weaving units and hence, market for the yarn would not be a problem. Since it was a highly mechanised unit, the maximum number of people employed for a shift would be just 12, he said. The three major reasons for deciding to invest in the U.S. were: North Carolina was a cotton growing area and hence contamination free cotton was available locally, the cost of power was just one-third of that here and quality power supply was assured 24x7, and the cost of capital was just one-third of that in India, he said.

According to an industry source, there is a trend of revival of the textile industry in the U.S. and some units in India might consider starting operations there.