Pakistani investor shuts apparel factories, over 1,500 lose jobs
View(s):Pakistani investor, the ZM Group which ran three apparel factories in Sri Lanka have closed down the factories and left the island, employees said.
The Board of Investment-approved factories; ZM Vertiko PVT Ltd at Padukka, ZM Kasuals at Kottawa and ZM Vision at Kiriella, were closed with over,1,500 workers losing their jobs. The management had informed the workers that the company has lost all apparel orders recently and they are not in a position to continue the business. A senior official of the Finance Ministry told the Business Times that the ZM group left the country, leaving behind unpaid loans of over Rs. 1 billion obtained from state and private banks. The three factories were set up between September 2003 and October 2006. The latest exit of a BOI loss-making investor with unpaid loans follows several other similar instances of unpaid dues with the Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank, prompting a government investigation.
Workers at these closed factories are yet to get compensation while the banks are unable to recover their loans since the machinery and other assets of these factories are outdated and were overvalued, the official said. Anton Marcus, convener and General Secretary of the Free Trade Zones and General Services Employees’ Union (FTZ&GSEU) said the union has urged the Labour Minister to take action to secure compensation for the workers.
He said that most of the factory owners had given bogus addresses to the BOI and no one can find them after they left the island or in their home country.
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