Synthetic upper material plant to open in SA next year
Pretoria, Gauteng, SA - South Africa will again have a source of locally made synthetic upper material when a new PU coating plant comes on stream in a year’s time.
Unica Textile Mills SA, a division of the Unica Group, is setting up its second manufacturing facility which will house its fully integrated PU plant.
“The state-of-the-art facility will conservatively have a monthly production capacity of 450 000 meters”, MD Amir Qasim said last week. “This will be a relief for the footwear industry, which has been finding it a challenge to stabilize its supply chain, due to limited or no local production of the material.”
The division currently produces PVC coated fabrics for tents and tarps, pool covers and industrial applications under its Polyvic brand.
He said that the group plans to bring in the latest technology from the leading manufacturer of PU plants in India. The plant will be capable of producing “all types” of PU fabrics, including embossed and printed materials.
The project is expected to be completed by November 2025. The group has recently acquired a 26 000 m² property for the facility, and the project team is working to meet the project deadline.
He said that Unica is also considering setting up a production line for its own knitted base fabric, as phase 2 of the project, further localising the contents of the material.
“We’ll start by producing materials for the footwear industry, then expand into furniture and automotive fabrics,” he said.
The Unica group was founded in 1999, and aims to locally produce all of its products. Currently the group has a staff complement of 800 employees which will rise to over 1 000 with the PU coating project.
The other 2 divisions of the group are Unica Iron & Steel, which is a secondary steel producer of light to medium structural steel, used in the construction industry and other industrial applications, and Unica Plastic Moulders, which produces moulded plastic products covering a wide market spectrum from furniture to packaging solutions.
