Required school uniform materials to be manufactured locally

Irangika Range

COLOMBO: The Government will manufacture school uniform material locally by suspending imports for the utilisation of four million population of schoolchildren.

Textile Development Minister Jayatissa Ranaweera told the Daily News that the Government saved a large amount of foreign exchange last year by manufacturing uniform material of schoolchildren, Armed Forces and Police personnel locally.

The required quantity of school uniform material for next year is 10.5 million metres while this year’s manufacturing are being processed successfully to meet next year’s demand.

This move has revived the local textile manufacturing industry and over 3,000 indirect and direct new jobs are expected to be created in the sector.

The Minister said this would vastly improve the local textile manufacturing industry creating a fresh demand for textiles in the local market.

“The foreign exchange which we spend on importing textile material earlier would remain in the country and will help improve livelihood of many local textile manufacturers,” the Minister said.

The estimated quantity of white cloth material is eight million metres while the total requirement of the white and blue trouser material is 2.5 million metres. The total robe material requirement is 200,000 metres. Sixty per cent of these quantities are expected to be manufactured in locally.

“We have already handed over orders to five local companies to manufacture 5.4 million metres of school uniform material.

The rest of the 40 per cent uniform material will be manufactured here by importing raw white cloth. Value will be added to raw white cloths under nine stages,” Ranaweera said.

He said tenders have already been called in this regard. The Ministry has appointed officials to supervise the manufacturing process by visiting factories.