DUSHANBE, July 6, 2010, Asia-Plus — After being closed for more than two years, Tajikistan’s largest textile enterprise, Kabool-Tajik-Textiles, resumed its operations last month, Ms. Gulchehra Sanginova, the chairperson of the light industry department within the Ministry of Energy and Industries (MoEI), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to her, some 400 people now work with the enterprise. She noted that after long examinations a part of equity stake of South Korea’s Kabool LTD that assumed 56 ownership interest in the enterprise was transferred to the Tajik side and other part of Kabool LTD’s equity stake was given towards the repayment of its debt.
“Kabool-Tajik-Textiles now works in cooperation with other Khujand-based enterprise, Sano,” said Sanginova, “Kabool-Tajik-Textiles produces fabric and Sano manufactures ready-made clothes.”
We will recall that Kabool-Tajik-Textiles had not been in operation since March 2008 due to its debts amounting to 75 million U.S. dollars. Moreover, equipment installed at the enterprise has become obsolete. Khujand Mayor Sodiq Mirkholiqov told Asia-Plus on July 8, 2009 that they were conducting negotiations on the way of coming out of the situation with Orienbonk, Tajikistan’s largest commercial bank.
Founded in 1994, Kabool-Tajik-Textiles was the Tajik-Korean joint venture. South Korea’s Kabool LTD assumed the 56% ownership interest in the enterprise and Tajik open-joint-stock company (OJSC) Abreshim (Silk) owned 44 percent of the shares. In October 2008, Abreshim sold its equity stake in the enterprise to Zarin Holding Limited, a company registered in the United Kingdom, at 500,000 U.S. dollars.
In former times, Kabool-Tajik Textiles had accounted for 24 percent of the volume of industrial goods produced in northern Tajikistan.
