Vagmi Cottons Limited will immediately invest $7 million this year to build a factory that would process 8,000 metric tonnes of cotton lint in the year 2019. The company, which has already acquired a 26 acre land in Mwembeshi area, Chiombo District, Central Province, will in 2020 evolve from cotton ginning to a full textile that will resuscitate the once vibrant textile industry in Zambia.
VAGMI Company Chief Executive Officer Amit Dwivedi says his company is also in talks with INDO Zambia Bank to study possibilities of a joint venture or leasing the defunct Kafue Textiles Company. Dwivedi says his company further identified Boniface Daka from Lusaka’s Chawama area who has been fully sponsored and is undertaking a year long training programme in India focusing on factory engineering and operations management. He says the company will engage 23, 000 cotton farmers from Mumbwa, Shibuyunji, Chipata, Petauke, Lundazi, Katete, among others, in the next two years.
This came to light when Zambia’s High Commissioner to India Judith Japijimpanga toured Vagmi Company Cotton Factory in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The Chief Executive Officer says the company will be running an outgrower scheme where it will supply farmers with seed, chemicals, wool packs and that it will be the company’s responsibility to collect cotton from farming areas as it will procure an initial 15 trucks.