Hong Kong-based Must Garments, said one of its regional units MRS Fashions is set to open a $10 million factory in Bahrain in September as part of its overseas expansion plans.

MRS Fashions reportedly accounts for more than 70 per cent of Bahrain's exports to the US.

The 100,000 square feet facility, at the Bahrain Investment Park, is already in the process of being equipped with the latest machinery from Germany and Japan, said the company's executive director Harinder Singh Lamba.

"This new factory will manufacture three million high-class designer clothes every year for top US manufacturers like JC Penney, Haggar and Macy's," he told the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

Top officials from Must Garments as well as its local partners attended a ceremony to sign the deal at the Kuwait Finance House offices in the Bahrain World Trade Centre.

"We are very excited with the development. This will ensure we are able to take even more advantage of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Bahrain and the US," said Lamba.

"Bahrain is already on the world map in this sector and we are only adding to that stature," he added.

The existing MRS Fashions outlet in East Riffa, which started production in 2000, manufactures 160,000 garments a week for global retailers.

It employs close to 1,700 workers, including 250 Bahrainis who work shifts around the clock to manufacture 26,000 trousers a day.

The new MRS factory will be staffed by 800 workers including expatriates from Myanmar. "This will be the first time people from Myanmar will be coming to work in Bahrain," said Lamba.

He earlier revealed the FTA in 2004 had been a key factor in the success of the company, which has nearly tripled its workforce since it opened.

Must Group supplies 35 million garments a year to the US and Europe via its factories in Bahrain, China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Egypt.-TradeArabia News Service