New Delhi, May 03: The Rs 350-crore Liberty shoes is setting up a plant in Uttaranchal to increase its manufacturing capacity by 10 per cent and the company will open 25 outlets across India by 2006 to cash in on the booming retail sector.
''The Rs 8-crore plant near Dehra Dun, with a capacity to manufacture 5,000 pairs of leather shoes per day, will be functional by September,'' Liberty Shoes executive director Adarsh Gupta told at the ongoing Lakme India Fashion Week (LIFW) here.
The shoes will cater to the domestic market and will also be exported to the US, Germany, France, Singapore and some neighbouring countries, he said.
The current manufacturing capacity of liberty shoes, India's no.1 brand in footwear, is 50,000 pairs per day.
Liberty, which forayed into the retail sector in January this year through its ''revolutions'' outlets, plans to open 25 stores in India with an investment of Rs 20-crore. The company-owned and managed stores will come up in shopping malls over the next two years and the turnover from them is projected at Rs 75 crore annually, he said.
''We have retail stores in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. Liberty will open outlets in malls at Mumbai, Gurgaon and Kolkata in the next three months,'' Gupta added.
The company is also investing Rs 6 crore in setting up retail outlets at Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Colombo, Dhaka, Karachi and Dubai.
Last month, liberty shoes opened an exclusive retail outlet in Singapore, becoming the first domestic footwear company to do so. Liberty already has outlets in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Oman, Kuwait and Fiji.
Bureau Report
