CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Dumisani Khumalo, Zimbabwe, May 1998
THEME = ECONOMY
A Dutch shoe company records economic success
in exporting shoes from Bulawayo to Europe
A Dutch shoe manufacturing company has come into its own in the midst of Zimbabwe's ailing economy, by exporting high quality shoes from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, to the European market. Previous to this, there had been calls to decentralise the economy, as Harare, the capital, has been receiving most of, if not all, foreign investment.
Napolina Jimmy Joy [Pvt] Limited, is exporting exclusive, high- quality childrens' and ladies' shoes to the European market ever since it set up shop under Zimbabwe's Export Processing Zones (EPZ) initiative 18 months ago. The company became the first operational EPZ after legislation was passed in 1994, by launching "Made in Zimbabwe" shoes onto the competitive global markets.
A successful application to manufacture the footwear in Bulawayo 's Belmont industrial area under a Z$63 million investment scheme, has grown by leaps and bounds. Company director, Age van Mels, explains: "In 1994 we took over a local company, Sunsand, which made footwear for the local market, so we knew Bulawayo and how it's shoe industry operates. As far as we were concerned, the infrastructure was in place. Matabeleland has a lot to offer it's skilled workforce - good roads and an airport. It is strategically located for our operation. We wanted to prove that we can make a truly international product that had never been made here. We had to fly in all the basic materials, make the shoes and then export them in boxes clearly marked "Made in Zimbabwe"".
In the quest for meeting sustained quality standards, the company is still training it's workforce in line with international requirements. Skilled craftsmen with specified experience from Holland 's shoe industry have been brought in (on secondment) to share their skills with their Zimbabwean counterparts. The Bulawayo operation now employs 82 people, all of whom have worked in the leather and footwear industry before.
The technology involved in making high quality footware has been greatly facilitated, as the Dutch company supplies European designs which are made in Bulawayo. Children's shoes with the brandnames "Skelter" and "Jimmy Joy" and the "Napolina" ladies' range were registered trademarks in the Netherlands before World War II.
However, the shoe industry in the Netherlands suffered a downturn when high production costs proved the undoing for local markets. There were a number of cutbacks in personnel which meant that skilled workers in the shoe trade found themselves without a job.
The only way to save the good name of the Dutch shoe industry was to look into the possibility of off-site manufacturing, where high quality standards could be maintained at lower input costs. The Dutch manufacturing of shoes then relocated itself mostly to North Africa and to the Balkans. However, a Dutch Ministry of Economics study of the African situation, indicated that central and southern Africa is moving towards the same development boom that produced the Asian "tiger" economies. Zimbabwe, therefore, seemed a sensible choice for a central African base.
With relocation, it was important that brandnames familiar to European customers should be retained, and it was essential that quality should still be of the highest order.
Another Napolina Jimmy Joy company director, Seamus Kelly, says: "Our aim is quality rather than quantity. We make 250-300 pairs of shoes per day and are aiming within the next two years to double that output. We do not sell locally. Our output is exclusively for export. We have had some request from local buyers but we have not encouraged that.
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CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1998 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement