The US fiber manufacturer The Lycra Company opened its largest elastane factory in the world on Friday in the Chinese city of Yinchuan.
“This milestone underscores the company’s continued investment in the Chinese market and highlights its strong commitment to building localized supply and distribution networks and driving advancements in intelligent manufacturing,” the group said in a statement on Monday. The facility in Ningxia Province is the US company’s second production site in China.
The new factory, which The Lycra Company built together with Yinchuan Financial Capital Investment Group for a total investment of 800 million yuan (97 million euros), will “increase elastane production capacity by 30,000 tons, achieve annual sales of over 1 billion yuan and create around 500 jobs” in the initial phase, the company said.
A capacity expansion to 120,000 tons per year is already planned in order to “meet the growing demand for high-quality elastane in China and the Asia-Pacific region while enabling faster and more flexible supply chain solutions,” according to a statement.