By Ben Garcia
Shakeel Ahmed Malik, a Pakistani nationwide, owns 18 textile retailers in Kuwait. Earlier than the coronavirus pandemic, he ran 22 textile retailers, apart from a number of different companies. Malik shared his story with Kuwait Occasions on how he grew to become a textile entrepreneur and the challenges he confronted in the course of the making an attempt instances of the pandemic.
Malik joined his brother in Kuwait looking for greener pastures in 1994. He began as a helper on the woodworking enterprise owned by his brother. After 4 years, he received exhausted and determined to open a pool parlor. At the moment, earlier than the appearance of the Web and cellphones and devices, billiards was a well-liked pastime for a lot of younger Kuwaitis and residents and a profitable enterprise alternative. His brother lent him KD 13,000 to open the parlor, and there was no wanting again. From one snooker corridor, he opened 13 comparable halls throughout Kuwait. After competitors heated up, he modified his line of enterprise. “I had saved sufficient to start out an excellent larger enterprise,” Malik recalled.
Malik needed to open a gold store, however his coronary heart was telling him to do one thing else. “I then met an Iranian searching for a enterprise accomplice in 2004. This man was an professional within the textile enterprise, however I didn’t know something about it. I used to be hesitant at first and consulted some folks. After I realized there was a excessive demand for textiles, I instantly jumped into it,” he mentioned. He initially invested KD 6,000.
When the textile firm was arrange and all the pieces went as deliberate, he opened a number of tailoring retailers to enhance his cloth enterprise. Most of his materials are imported from China, India, Japan and South Korea. Malik’s firm grew to become well-known, and he operated as much as 22 shops on the top of the enterprise. His merchandise embody cotton yarns, polyester and cotton blended yarns, silk, cotton, soy protein, polyester and nylon.
“We choose solely the most effective materials – that’s the reason folks belief us. My advertising in-charge is paid a good-looking wage to purchase merchandise from numerous nations. He additionally earns fee and goes all over the world, largely China, to purchase new and fashionable textile merchandise for the enterprise,” Malik added.
After his enterprise grew to become properly established, he began getting orders from India and the UAE. The upward pattern continued till the tip of 2015. “By 2016, the general enterprise local weather step by step declined due to unstable oil costs and different monetary troubles all over the world. So even earlier than the pandemic, we skilled a droop in enterprise. It was already happening, however the huge impression was felt after all from 2020 until now. Hopefully by subsequent yr, we are going to get better, as I feel we’ve reached the bottom level already,” Malik informed Kuwait Occasions.
The textile sector in Kuwait is small in comparison with different nations within the Center East, but it surely has huge potential for progress, in accordance with Malik. Earlier than the pandemic, Malik had round 60 folks working in his six corporations, however now he solely has 20 workers. “In the course of the pandemic I let go of many workers as a part of cost-cutting measures. For greater than six months I had no earnings. My financial savings had been depleted as I continued paying my employees. I additionally needed to pay the lease for my retailers – in the course of the lockdown, the homeowners of actual property corporations waived the lease for under three months. The remaining months I paid in full,” he mentioned.
Malik remains to be choosing up the items. “The retailers are getting clients, however not as a lot as these previous to the pandemic. We’re slowly recovering. I feel the market will solely speed up in 2023,” he mentioned.
