Having traded in cotton yarn and fabrics for over a decade now, Coimbatore-headquartered Kikani Exports Pvt Ltd is now set to venture into spinning with the setting up of a new unit at Dholka in Ahmedabad District in Gujarat. The mill is coming up at an investment of ₹260 crore.

Niche market

“The first phase of this unit, with a capacity of 30,000 spindles, would be ready by February 2015. We will be adding another 30,000 spindles by December next year. Our target is to have one lakh spindles in three years,” Vrajesh Kikani, Managing Director, Kikani Exports told BusinessLine .

Sharing his plans and reasons for foraying into the mill sector, Vrajesh said, “The incentives offered by the State of Gujarat are too good to be missed. However, that is not the only reason. As a trader, we were not able to convince the quality conscious customer. This prompted us to look into backward integration. We will be doing only value added yarn and will target the niche market.”

Kikani Exports has acquired 28 acres of land for the proposed mill. The construction work is on and installation of machinery is expected to commence within the next couple of months.

Incentives

On incentives, he said, “The interest cost is just 7 per cent, industries are offered a discount of ₹1 a unit on power tariff, quality power and uninterrupted supply and many more. For instance, we got the plan approved and passed in 24 hours and temporary power connection in one day.”

Reverting to his present business, he said “We source the yarn from 130-odd sellers and export the entire volume to 30 different countries.”

The company’s turnover during the last fiscal was ₹1420 crore. Its turnover target for the current fiscal is ₹1600 crore.

The Cotton Textiles Export promotion Council (Texprocil) identified Kikani Exports as the highest exporter of yarn in the 50s count and below under category III (turnover of above ₹500 crore) for the year 2013-14.

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