Walton to double its export volume from December

Sonia H Moni Walton, a leading local electronics, automobile and engineering products manufacturer, is going to double its export volume from next month, officials said. "The export volume of Walton is now worth around Tk 50 million monthly since last few months and we are hopeful that the export volume will reach Tk 100 million from next month." Walton International Marketing Manager Lokman Hossain Akash told the FE Thursday. "We exported 5000 pieces of fridge, 600 air conditioners and 50 motor bikes to Myanmar, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Qatar during last few months. Last week we entered into Iran market with 300 pieces of air conditioners out of an order for 1000 pieces." He said: "We cannot export our products to Iran directly for some barriers on their side and for this reason we have started to export our goods from Dubai which is easy and cost effective for us. Walton products will go to some others countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Ghana and Egypt from next month." Mr Akash said: "We have a big plan to gradually go to markets of African countries like Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Mali and Tanzania." Asked about the reason for focusing on the African countries, Mr Akash said, "Bangladesh has an admirable image in the African countries because of its participation in the UN peacekeeping missions. Generally we think that African people are poor but it is a partial truth." "Africa is rich in natural resources like petroleum, diamond, iron ore, copper, gold, bauxite, uranium etc. After market research on Africa we have learnt that it has a lot of rich people who can afford to buy quality products," He said: "We are going to explore new markets for our products in African countries which have around 1.50 billion people." Mr Akash added: "We have two big orders for export of around 3000 pieces of air conditioner to UAE and 200 pieces of motor bike to Ghana." SM Ashraful Alam, managing director of Walton Hi-tech Industries Ltd, said: The production capacity of fridge was around 800,000 pieces, assembled air conditioner 50,000 and motor bike 100,000 pieces in fiscal year 2009-10. "We have installed modern technology-based equipment and at the end of fiscal year 2010-11 we increased the production capacity of fridge to 1.4 million pieces, air conditioner to 300,000 pieces and motorbike to 300,000 pieces." Mr Alam added: "Walton is now exporting only five per cent of its yearly total production and we have a plan to export 20 per cent within next one year."