Briefing a group of visiting journalists at the invitation of the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) last week, Managing Director Mukesh Josh said the expansion is geared at boosting production. Nortex started off in 1990 with a P2 million BDC loan, which helped Southern Africa's fastest growing end-to-end manufacturer of exquisitely designed towel products to stand tall. BDC later funded Nortex at about P1.6 million for further expansion.
Mukesh, who is a chartered technologist, said that in 2001 BDC wanted to disinvest so he opted to buy them (BDC) out. The expansion project, Mukesh explained, is expected to help the turnover sales of Nortex to grow from P100 million to P120 million.The envisaged expansion would help Nortex come closer to realising its ambition of capturing markets in Asia, the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (US). Nortex produces a wide range of terry towels, napkins, beach towels, athletics towels, bathrobes and bath mats, which are sold in major chain stores throughout the Southern Africa region. The company employs about 440 workers 18 of which are Indian, South African and Zimbabwean expatriates. Meanwhile, Josh stated that in 1997, as part of its diversification programme, Nortex Group bought Matsiloje Portland Cement (MPC) through an auction sale from the National Development Bank (NDB) and was funded through a BDC loan. As part of the expansion project, BDC has recently approved a loan of P16.5 million and P4 million as preference shares.
