High Quality Global Clothing Factory has come to Owerri, Imo State, from far away Turkey to create a difference in the clothing and fashion industry. In this interview, Elizabeth John, the manager speaks to SABINUS ELEMBA on the choice of Owerri as the African headquarters of the company and the impact they have made among the youth in the country. Excerpts:
Can we have a thorough view of High Quality Global Clothing Factory?
First of all my name is Elizabeth John; I am the manager of the HighQuality Global Clothing Factory here in Owerri.We produce school
uniform of every kind and T-shirts and some of the works you can seehere, shirts, senators, jeans. I mean, clothing in general.
Has the operating environment been favourable to your business or otherwise?
Actually, that is the problem of Nigeria today because of the environment for doing business; what you need for business to thrive is not in place, therefore, you have to, somehow, do something and also raise it up to the standard you want. Yes, the economy is not favourable on business for now but what can we do? We still strive to make sure that business goes on and you cannot say that the government or the economy is tough and close shop.
Almost all the businesses have some challenges they face in Nigeria now.
What is the greatest challenge that you face as a manufacturer ofclothing in the Owerri-Onitsha Road Industrial Layout here in Irete,
Owerri West Local Government Area?
There are so many of them, but the chief among them is lack of electricity (power). So, we have to keep our business going by using our generatorsand that is very, very expensive. When you are on business and thereare certain things the government should make available for you butwhen those things are not available, you have to pay heavily to get analternative to ensure they are available and it is not fair. There isno power especially in this industrial layout.
We have been here for the past four months now working with epilepticpower supply, I can tell you how much we have spent on buying diesel,is really on the high side. But you still pay for the EEDC bills eventhough they do not supply power, and you do not see their electricpower to work with; it is very challenging.
Can we know how much you spend on purchasing diesel monthly to ensurethat you have power to run your business?
It is really much, running into hundreds of thousands of nairamonthly. We have the big and small generators, which we run for hoursto provide power; it is not encouraging for business especially likeours, spending so much on diesel and still pay EEDC bills.
I can see a lot of people on jeans trousers with red T-shirts; arethey staff and can we know how many staff you have here?
We have up to 50 staff and the good thing is that we train them forfree, some of them came here without having a background in sowingclothes but my director did it as a kind of giving back to thesociety, that is his own corporate social responsibility (CSR). Instead ofasking these young people to pay, they are being trained free ofcharge. Many of them have just graduated and instead of staying athome we called them to come and learn something without asking them tobring any money. So, many of them came, we trained them free startingfrom the time we started operation in Owerri and we also give them transport allowance to encourage them.
We do that to encourage young people because the motto of our company is‘changing lives, making a difference’ so we want to make a difference in the clothing and fashion industry here in Nigeria. In this case,what do we do? We say, come we don’t need your money and let us trainyou and at the end we employ you and place you on salary so that youwork for us to help and reduce crimes andcriminalities on thestreets of this country, Nigeria.
Does the present government of Imo State knowabout this good gesture done to the youth who could have taken todifferent kinds of criminal acts?
No, I can tell you that the state government may not be aware of it.It is just like the company giving back to the society, so we do notneed to announce our good gesture and kindness to the people. It is part of the company’s contributions to nation building.
Nigerians are madly in love with foreign materials and importedclothing, how much patronage do you receive?Do you work at fullcapacity to meet orders placed by your clients since there isepileptic power supply from EEDC?
Fine, we work at full capacity; we produce also to meet orders placedby our customers using our generating sets.The challenge we have in this country is that we prefer things fromoutside the country to the ones made in our country.We came into this country to bridge the gap. The things you getoutside Nigeria, you can also get them here in this company with goodquality because we use Turkish standard and produce Turkish quality inour factory here in Nigeria, our products are Turkish products, ourmaterials are Turkish materials, you can see by yourself that ourproducts are of international standard. So, that is why we say we aremaking a difference and changing lives. You do not need to go abroadto import your wears anymore, you can get them here, good jeans, goodT-shirts, good shirts, good uniforms etc, you can get them in HighQuality Global Clothing.
Who are your clients and where do they come from?
We are producing for everybody, companies, corporate bodies, those whocan also sell, because we want to make sure that everybody has ourproducts, we have patronage from companies and individuals and ourclients are all over the country.
There are many firms doing the same business you do and are also incompetition with you;how are you dealing with competition to makesure that you keep the business afloat?
That is our quality, we are called High Quality Global Clothing, thequality makes the difference, what differentiates us from othercompetitors is the quality we produce. And our quality is ofinternational standard; if you want we can work around and I will showyou so that you can feel the texture of the materials we use.
How do you procure your materials- from the textile companies inNigeria or abroad?
Right now, the materials we are using for productions came from our head office in Turkey. This company is a joint venture of Turkish and Nigerian partners.
Why did you locate the African headquarters in Owerri instead of Lagosor Port Harcourt?
Every business must not be in Lagos or Port Harcourt;Owerri is a beautiful city and has so much to offer and if you look around, there are no many of this type of industry in this industrial layout in Owerri and we felt that people here need our good products. And the environment here favours us apart from the power problem.And my message to the general public is that High Quality Global Factory is here to meet their needs; there is no need to go to China.China is not the ultimate; we are capable of serving them, we have the capacity, we have the manpower, our products speak for us, we are here to make a difference.
