Walton creates Bangladesh’s first lift manufacturing facility
Local electronics giant Walton is defined to flag off the country's first lift manufacturing facility, in a display of Bangladesh's growing professional prowess.
The plant established at a cost of Tk 50 crore at the Walton Hi-Tech Industries (WHIL) at Chandra, Gazipur has begun test production.
"We are expecting to cater 50 % of the marketplace share by a year by beating the importers both regarding quality and price," said Sohel Rana, chief executive officer of Walton Elevator.
Each year, Bangladesh needs more than 5,000 units of lifts and almost all of them are imported from China.
The market size is not significantly less than Tk 1,200 crore and it is growing at about 20 % per year, helped by widening urbanisation.
Walton is manufacturing all three types of lifts -- passenger, cargo and capsule lifts -- that are popular in Bangladesh.
Its passenger lift can carry a load of 300 kilogram to 3,000kg, meaning four people to 40 people at the same time, while cargo elevators, which are mostly found in organizations and factories, can move 800kg to 4,500kg in weight.
"We are quite pleased with our very own production quality," Rana said.
So confident is Walton that it will offer five-year instalment facility to customers right from the start.
"It's not a tale. Five years is a quite long time and we are taking that much risk as we are very confident about our products."
Rana expects the entire lift price will go down once the factory starts full-fledged operation.
"Importers are making huge margins and definitely the forex market will be corrected when our product comes."
Currently, a passenger lift costs Tk 20 lakh nonetheless it will be slashed by a few lakhs within a year as a result of Walton's production, he said.
Cargo lifts are a lot more expensive.
In 2014, Walton took the initiative to create the plant with the view to assembling heavy technology products.
About 150 local and a great number of foreign engineers will work in the plant, that includes a capacity to manufacture 1,000 units a year. The company aims to expand the capability based on the market response.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is because of inaugurate the plant at a programme today in existence of Posts and Telecommunication Minister Mustafa Jabbar and State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak.
Rana also sought policy reforms from the government so that an area lift assembling industry develops.
Currently, local producers need to pay 10 % customs duty for equipment and raw materials had a need to manufacture lifts, whereas finished products carry only one 1 % duty.
"This should be revised to greatly help the industry to grow," Rana said.
In line with the fast-growing economy, lift consumption in Bangladesh is increasing steadily.
"New players will join the race to manufacture lifts locally soon."
With the plant, Walton added another feather in its cap. It manufactures refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, LED/LCD televisions, motorcycles, smart phones and kitchen appliances.
Walton may be the biggest exporter in neuro-scientific electronics, with occurrence in a lot more than 20 countries, in line with the company's website.
