Saudi Leather Industries Company Ltd, one of the Middle East’s leading makers of industrial and safety footwear, recently ramped up production capacity with the introduction of German equipment at its Second Dammam Industrial City factory.

A spokesman of the company said a 30-station Desma injection moulding machine helped raise output capacity to 750,000 pairs. The company makes industrial safety, military and formal footwear as well as a range of belts. The footwear has applications in factories, foundries, electrical facilities, hospitals, security guard rooms and defence establishments.

According to the company, production in 2011 was 600,000 pairs against 550,000 pairs in the previous year. Sales were SR48.3 million ($12.8 million) against SR46 million, of which SR8.3 million came from exports. Although exports had consistently showed growth over the past three years, the spokesman said they would have been higher had there not been a recession. Markets had yet to pick up and there were “many cross-currents.”

He described the Gulf as an oversubscribed market and said the company continued to make headway by working hard to instill confidence in markets and retain customer loyalty.

Safety boots accounted for 80.4 per cent of total turnover. The company said its in-house laboratory had regularly come up with improvements to existing offerings and new products, one of which was the “composite toe cap” footwear.

It earlier operated under technical collaboration with Wolverine Inc, USA, which also had a share in the company. Saudi Leather is now a fully Saudi-owned outfit.