Arafa of Egypt Reorganizing To Focus On High-End#
China may have its own aspiring luxury suit brands (previously), but the Chinese high-end suit market looks like it's set to get a little more crowded. This week, the Egyptian textile company Al Arafa Investments and Consulting announced that it plans to triple production of its suits due to higher demand in the Chinese market.
“I was in Hong Kong last week and I found that Hong Kong opened 3,000 square meters of Louis Vuitton,” Alaa Arafa, 52, chairman and chief executive of Cairo-based Arafa said in an interview on Aug. 3. “In spite of the 3,000 square meter shop, the Chinese are in queues outside the door, still waiting. This is a very important signal.”
China overtook the U.S. as the second-biggest luxury market last year, after Japan, with sales of $9.4 billion, or 27.5 percent of the global share, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Sales in China, the world’s most populous nation, will reach $14.6 billion by 2015, it said.
Al Arafa, which provides suits to stores such as Debenhams, Banana Republic, Zara and Massimo Dutti, is reorganizing to focus more on the luxury suit market. It plans to boost its production of high-end suits from 250 suits per day to 750 per day in three years, Arafa, who was trained as a doctor before taking over the family business, said.