“In our factory, today is always better than yesterday,” stated Mr. Reesom Negash, the General Manager, explaining the company’s efforts to raise its production both in quality and quantity. Privatized in 1998, Barako Textile Factory is the second largest textile factory of its kind in Eritrea, and has registered a remarkable development with 30% production increase in the past two years.

It is logical that one has to pay something in order to achieve a particular goal. If the set goal is success or progress, the core approach is always hard work. This has been translated into deeds as regards Barako Textile Factory.

After independence, the Government of Eritrea practically re-established the Factory by renewing a number of machines and setting up new departments. Still a lot remains to be done so as to attain improved standard. It was such circumstances that factory was privatized, and Ms Saba Negash bought it in 1998. The privatized factory had to cure with a number of uncompleted tasks. The first thing was to do away with the outdated machines and import new, modern and computable machines.

As a result, a number of machines were imported and repaired. Even then, one thing remained unfulfilled, namely spare parts. The factory was spending huge amount of foreign currency in importing spare parts for the machines. “The machines are not new. So, we were spending up to USD 300,000 annually for spare parts,” Mr. Reesom explained.

Finding an alternative was the biggest task the manager had to cope with, as the money spent for spare parts kept increasing from time to time. “We, together with the heads of the factory’s departments, conducted a lot of research and finally came up with the idea of establishing a new spare parts workshop. About USD 300,000 was spent for the establishment of the new workshop which subsequently enabled us to manufacture more than 90% of the spares we used to import before,” Mr. Reesom elaborated.

Regarding the advantages resulting from the establishment of the new workshop, Mr. Reesom pointed out that the move helped the factory’s management and workforce to create the sense of “We can do it”. “At the time when the downtime of the machineries was high, our employees were compelled to be engaged the whole day in overcoming the problems,” he added.

“Hence, the work was tough and beyond the capacity of our employees. Today, however, thanks to the workshop no one has left us due to the acute problems the machineries used to cause,” Mr. Reesom asserted.

Government motivation is crucial in conditions where there exists economic problem and no peace - no war situation as well as unstable regional situation. Under such circumstances, the Government of Eritrea then assists promising factories in importing the materials and spares they need.

Mr. Tadesse Woldeyohannes, Director General of Industrial Development in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, in an interview he conducted with Shaebia.org regarding textile factories once said that the focus of textiles and garment factory’s should be that of enhancing the quality and maximizing the quantity of their respective products. Besides, the tasks of introducing new technology, providing training and upgrading the skills of the employees must be taken seriously so as to adequately compete in the global market.

Barako Textile Factory started to export its products in April 2009. And the first client states are Sudan and Uganda. The factory also plans to raise the volume of export by providing fair and qualified textile products to other countries in the region. Flannel, shirts and trousers are the products the factory is exporting at the moment.

Upgrading the employees’ capacity was also another objective of the Barako Textile Factory. In this regard, Mr. Reesom explains: “On-job-training is our main objective so as to develop the production capacity of the factory. If the employees are well qualified and capable of operating and repairing the old and the new machines, we will not face any problem in endeavors to raise to production output, as well as compete with foreign products and introduce new technologies.

“We have been inviting many professionals from foreign countries for on-job-training. Courses over the past 3 to 4 years, and we are conducting almost all such training by ourselves,” Mr. Reesom further explained.

After the privatization of a given company or factory, the expectation of the majority of the people is growth in the number of employees. In this respect, Barako Textile Factory has met the demand. The number of its employees has doubled since privatization.

“We transferred all the employees of the former Mereb Textile Factory to Barako Textiles. The employees were then around 450, and presently it has reached over 900,” the Manager indicated. In addition, as its standard demands, the factory has Quality Control Department equipped with professionals in textile technology.

Regarding future plans, Mr. Reesom said that the factory will introduce modern machines and enhance the production capacity. At the moment, it is conducting research on the types of machineries and equipments to make available in order to meet demand effectively.

“The flannels we are currently producing have only a width of 1.5 meters; but in the near future, with the support of the new machines that we will soon import, we will be able to produce king-size flannels,” the Manager explained.

It is known that almost all the uniform of members of the Warsay-Yikealo Development Campaign and the uniform of High Schools students in Asmara are manufactured by Barako Textile Factory.

In addition, the Factory plans to produce cotton it self as the Government has provided it with large agricultural land in Alebu, Gash Barka region.

Barako Textile Factory was first established in 1964 by Israeli investors. Later, with the coming of the Haileslasie regime, it started declining. But the worst decline situation the factory encountered happened to be in the days of the rule of the Dergue regime in the mid 1970’s until the achievement of independence.

Barako Textile Factory undertakes all the processing activities ranging from yarn production, painting and weaving to final product.