The Danish footwear manufacturer Ecco is investing Bt100 million ($2.3 million) in its Thailand tannery. The investment will see the plant’s production capacity rise by 40% to 14.5 million square metres of leather per year.

Ecco is expanding the tannery in Ayutthaya in order to support its subsidiary, Ecco Thailand, which recently increased its manufacturing output 25% to 3.6 million pairs per year. Ecco Thailand has targeted six million pairs per year by 2005.

Speaking to the local media, Bert Van Heesbeen, managing director of the tannery said the company had recorded a 30% increase in annual sales since the plant opened in 2000 and that it is targeting total sales of $25 million this year.

According to Van Heesbeen, 75% of the leather produced at the Ecco manufacturing site is used by the group itself, while the remainder is supplied to Wilson and Coach for making baseball gloves and bags at their factories in China and Vietnam. He added that the new investment brings the company’s total in Thailand to $12 million, most of which was spent on the construction of its manufacturing plant in 2000.

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