Interloop Limited, one of Pakistan’s largest hosiery manufacturers, has successfully started up its new vertically integrated knitwear plant with plans already in place to expand production later this year.
The facility produces 50 tons of knitted fabric per day, lifting Interloop’s capacity to 25 million pieces of knitwear per year, with plans for the second phase expected to add a further 12 million pieces per year.
Consistent with Interloop’s sustainability drive, the 1.3 million square feet plant has been designed in line with LEED standards and is currently in the certification process.
“We’re setting new standards, harnessing innovative technologies, and relentlessly pursuing process improvement,” said Navid Fazil, chief executive officer of Interloop. “Through our LEED certified infrastructure, a self-reliant, green energy grid, and transition to biomass fuel, we’re committed to increasing Interloop’s sustainability impact on an unprecedented scale.”
Spanning 232 acres, the Interloop Apparel Park also includes the company’s fifth hosiery mill, a water recycling plant, a solar park with a capacity of 25 MW, and a day care centre with a capacity for 150 children. Interloop was founded in the early 1990s by Fazil and his brother Musadaq Zulqarnain who acts as Chairman.
It runs its own in-house spinning, yarn dyeing, knitting and finishing facilities, operating more than 4,000 Lonati knitting machines and 46,704 ring-spinning spindles and employing around 16,000 people. The company’s also operates a production facility in Bangladesh.
It ranks as the Pakistan’s seventh largest exporter and generates approximately 90 percent of its revenue through exports supplying yarns, hosiery and apparel to some of the world’s leading brands including Nike, Puma, Reebok, H&M and Levi’s.