Hong Kong-headquartered Growth-Link Overseas has announced it would invest Rs 300 crore to build a manufacturing facility for Nike footwear at Cheyyar, near Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu. Growth Link is a subsidiary of Taiwan-based shoe major Feng Tay Enterprise and the leading original equipment manufacturer and supplier to Nike.
The company has received all the requisite clearances from the board of approval of the commerce ministry for a Special Economic Zone at Cheyyar. According to industry sources, the facility would start production from February next.
Cheyyar SEZ Developers, the special purpose vehicle created to implement the project, is in the process of developing the SEZ spread over 275 acre at the SIPCOT Industrial Estate in Cheyyar. Growth-Link Overseas also plans to bring in its preferred suppliers and other component manufacturers to the SEZ.
The company has the option to acquire an additional 225-acre for future expansion and has signed an MoU to this effect with the Tamil Nadu government in September last year.
The 100 per cent export-oriented facility will have the capacity to manufacture 1 million pairs of footwear annually over the next five years, with an initial capacity for 200,000 pairs a month.
The footwear SEZ is expected to create employment for 5,000 people in the initial 1-2 years, with total employment expected to touch 15,000 over the next three years. The SEZ will give a fillip to the economy of the industrially backward Cheyyar taluk, and is expected to have women comprising at least 80 per cent of its workforce.
The $770-million Feng Tay Enterprises Co is engaged in the manufacture of sports shoes, skate shoes and casual shoes for Nike, and has manufacturing facilities in China and Vietnam.
The past two years have witnessed an investment inflow of at least Rs 800 crore from the Taiwanese and Chinese footwear manufacturers to South India to set up sector-specific SEZs as part of their diversification plans.
While, Apache Footwear, which initially planned to invest $60 million on a footwear facility in Sriperumbudur, is now in the process of setting up a Rs 500-crore footwear SEZ spread over 500 acre at Tada in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh to manufacture shoes for the Adidas and Reebok brands.
