Big Blue
Cone Denim, the world’s largest denim producer, based in Greensboro, N.C., hopes to have its new denim plant in Nicaragua up and running some time in early 2008. Cone Denim recently announced it obtained a seven-year loan for $37 million from the Inter-American Investment Corp. and four co-financing banks doing business in Nicaragua to complete the project. Matt Haynes, Cone Denim’s vice president of denim manufacturing for Latin America, said the construction and start-up of the facility were underway and that production should start in the first quarter of 2008. The facility, located outside Managua in Ciudad Sandino, will be a vertical operation using state-of-the art manufacturing equipment to process raw cotton into finished fabric. When fully operational, the factory will produce 28 million yards annually and employ 850 people. Cone Denim also has plants in Mexico, Turkey and India, with an expansion project underway in China.
