“Kingdom right now has total installed spindles over 100,000, with an annual capacity more than 18,000 tons of wet spun linen yarn, one of the largest linen yarn spinning abilities in the world. Now Kingdom shares 15 per cent in China's domestic linen yarn market and 10 per cent of the global market.Kingdom shares around 50 per cent of the whole export of linen yarn from China to the high-end markets such as Italy, Japan, Korea and other countries in EU.” exclaims Ren."

Kingdom, a leading China-based linen fibre producer, organised a ‘Mumbai Day’ on January 7, 2016 to meet existing clients and establish a network with new clients. Ren Weiming, Chairman of the Board, Kingdom Holdings China inaugurated the session that also focused on the origin and growth of luxury fibre linen and its growth, and its emergence in the Indian market.

China’s Kingdom in India

The event organised in association with Sundaram TexVentures, saw around more than 60 select industry professionals interact and network over common interest. Stalwarts including Ramesh Poddar from Siyarams, Virendra Arora and R Mishra- D Décor, Rajendra Agrawal- Donear, Yogesh Mittal- Kottex, Surat, Vijay Puniyani and Gulshan Kumar- Vardhaman, Sunil Patil and Vishal Shah-Arvind Mills, Ashok Ramdham from Mafatlal, Balachander were some of the attendees. The audience included around 45 customers from various parts of India Mumbai, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Surat, Ahmedabad and Ichhalkaranji attended the program.

Mumbai Day was also graced by Jean Claude Lambert, President of Teillage De Lin Du Vert Galant, which is an excellent flax enterprise in France, who spoke about ‘The Growth of Flax in Europe’.

Talking about Kingdom’s expertise in linen, Ren said the company has more than 30 years of history, and started its linen business 16 years ago. “Kingdom people are dedicated in linen business with our enduring passion for pure linen. We constantly invest in advanced linen spinning technology to provide best quality of linen yarn in the world.”

Renowned linen manufacturer-exporter

Kingdom Holdings that started as a silk spinning and weaving company for first 17 years, in 1999 moved to spinning linen, sighting growing opportunities in the segment. Kingdom procures all of their scutched flax fibre from best of the Scutching mills in France.

Kingdom has three linen spinning mills, located in the two most developed textile centres in China: Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces and is in the process of developing the fourth one in Ethiopia. “Kingdom right now has total installed spindles over 100,000, with an annual capacity more than 18,000 tons of wet spun linen yarn, one of the largest linen yarn spinning abilities in the world. Now Kingdom shares 15 per cent in China's domestic linen yarn market and 10 per cent of the global market,” exclaims Ren.

Kingdom shares around 50 per cent of the whole export of linen yarn from China to the high-end markets such as Italy, Japan, Korea and other countries in EU. In addition, Kingdom has also established strategic cooperation relations with Siemens (China) Co in the energy saving, environmental protection, fine management, information system, and automation.

Emergence of linen in the India market

Linen is one of the most popular textile products in the international market. While Europe continues to be the traditional consumption market for linen, demand in other countries like China, India and Japan is growing fast, which has brought a new momentum and opportunity for the linen industry. “India has become one of the fastest growing markets of linen consumption in the world. Kingdom is one of the most active linen yarn suppliers in India. We want to provide better quality linen yarn, to meet the continuous upgrading demand in the Indian market. With our third spinning mill put into running, we will have sufficient capacity to meet the quantitative demand in India. India will be one of Kingdom’s major markets in the future,” explains Ren.

“My association with Kingdom Holdings started in the year of 2009, when I first met Marc from Kingdom in Shanghai. At that time the consumption of linen yarn in India was at a very nascent stage but I had a definite idea that it was going to grow very fast. I explained the future potential of linen yarns in India market and that’s was how this business association started,” avers Manish Mehta, Managing Director, Sundaram TexVentures.

Kingdom associated with Manish Mehta as their exclusive agents in the year 2009 for promotion and selling of their wet spun linen yarn in India and later other neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka were added to this exclusive arrangement. “We started with a mere 300MT sales in the year 2009¬-2010. And over the past six years with the continued support of our esteemed customers in India, volumes have grown gradually and consistently. In this calendar year 2015, we have achieved a sales of 2,400MT of Kingdom’s linen yarns in India alone which is around 20 per cent of the total 12,000 MT yarn shipped from China to India during this period,” informed Mehta.

www.kingdom-china.com