Al Arafa Investments and Consulting, Egypt's oldest publicly traded textile company, plans to triple production of high-end suits because it sees growing demand for such products as Chinese shoppers buy more luxury products, Bloomberg reported. China overtook the US 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, Alaa Arafa, chairman and chief executive of Cairo-based Arafa, told Bloomberg in an interview. Egypt's proximity to Europe, and especially Italy, will allow Arafa to produce luxury suits at more competitive prices because of cheaper labor in the Arab world's most populous country. The company is planning to start a shirt factory next year with a capacity of 1 million shirts per year. It will contribute $50 million to the business annually when it reaches capacity of 3 million per year, Arafa said. –Bloomberg
