PAE and partners push forward with Nigeria shoe factory plan
19/06/2019
PAE has been working since the start of this year with in-country partner, Sokoto Investment Company Limited (SICL), a publicly-owned asset-holding platform in Sokoto state, to establish a new tannery and new shoe factory in Sokoto, in the north-west of Nigeria. Simple Factory Group, a Chinese footwear manufacturer and part of the Tunlit Group, will help the partners reach their goal of beginning footwear production next year, starting with a rate of 2,000 pairs per day.
Simple will also make its Asian facilities available for training key employees at the Nigerian operation, which will be called Sokoto Shoe.
On announcing the development, PAE’s chief executive Dawn Spetale said: “Simple is a natural partner for us to develop our vision in Nigeria with Sokoto Shoe. They understand what we want to achieve, and they’re ideally placed to help us hit the ground running when the factory becomes operational.”
Tunlip International’s chief operations officer, Peter Hadgraft, said the group thought the plans for Sokoto “made perfect sense”. He explained that Tunlip sees Sokoto Shoe as an important project for a number of reasons, saying: “It will give us better access to working in a vitally important market in Africa. We’re also impressed with the scope and ambition of PAE’s strategy, which resonates with our own growth and diversification strategy.”
Sokoto Shoe aims to produce most of its leather through the Sokoto Tan tannery. Both facilities have already been granted state land to go ahead with the set-up process and local partner, SICL, has said it believes the project will be an important source of jobs in the local area and help, in the words of SICL managing director Muhammadu Buhari Dasuki, to help put Sokoto once again “on the global leather map as a hallmark of quality and enterprise”.
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