Business
Tanzanian textile firm to train workers in Vietnam
  • | The Citizen | November 30, 2009 08:54 PM

Tanzanian based A to Z Textile Mill will send its employees to Vietnam for intensive training in textile manufacturing.

The factory will send 90 workers to the Far East country in batches as it moves to expand production of mosquito nets. Mr Godwin Abedi, a senior official with the company, revealed the plans to reporters last Friday.

He said A to Z mill, located at Kisongo on the outskirts of Arusha along Dodoma road, was seeking to raise its production to match with the increasing demand for mosquito nets.

Accompanied by other managers, he took journalists around various production units, saying with 6,500 workers, the mill was one of the largest industrial employers in the country. Most of the employees are young ladies recruited from the central and western zone regions.

At least 1,700 have been provided with accommodation, he said. Mr Anuj Shah, the firm's chief executive officer, said the factory was established specifically to fight malaria, the leading killer disease in Africa.

"It is a war which can be won if everybody is involved," he said as he described insecticide-treated olyset nets as the cheapest form of protection from mosquitoes.

He said the search for vaccination against malaria was likely to take longer than anticipated and that is why the World Health Organisation (WHO) was advocating for use of treated mosquito nets.

"Even if the vaccination is found, mosquitoes will continue to be there causing nuisance," he said when briefing Arusha-based journalists.

The factory, which was inaugurated early last year, is a joint venture between A to Z Textile Mills of Arusha and Sumitomo Chemical of Japan. It manufactures 65,000 mosquito bednets daily, 90 per cent of which are exported to other countries in Africa.

The factory was in the headlines early this year when workers downed tools to press for higher wages. But the management insisted on Friday that it had addressed most of the complaints raised then.

According to Mr Abedi, the lowest paid employee was earning Sh120,000 a month. Food was provided for free to those on duty as well as accommodation for female workers.

�We were forced to provide accommodation because many of the workers were brought to Arusha from other regions and had problems of housing, he explained.

According to him, women employees account for 65 per cent of the total workforce. There had been nasty incidents of women being attacked but aim to protect them," he said.